BAYLE’S DICTIONARY.

WOMEN. (Influence of.)

Cethegus had so great a credit in Rome, that no­thing could be obtained without him, and as he had a mistress, to whom he could refuse nothing, it hap­pened that an unchaste woman had the whole city at her disposal. Lucullus was obliged to make his court to this woman to obtain the commission of making war against Mithridates, for without, be could not ob­tain that noble service. Plutarch observes, “that he resolved to use all his power, and to try every thing to prevent any mother from obtaining it besides him­self; and, after having tried all other expedients, be was at last forced, against his nature, to have recourse to a method which was neither fair nor honest, but indeed the most proper he could have found to attain , the end he desired. At that time, there was a woman in Rome, whose name was Præcia, very famous, as well for her beauty, as for her genteel and pleasant way of talking, but otherwise, as little chaste as those who made a public trade of their body; but, foras­much as she made use of the credit and favour of those who kept her company, and discoursed with her, to promote the affairs and the party of those whom she loved, she was commonly reported (besides the other charms and commendable qualities she had) to be a courtly woman, and fit, by her secret practices,

to bring a design to a happy conclusion, which gave her a great reputation. Thus, when she had gained Cethegus, who had at that time all the vogue, and managed all the affairs of the public at his plea­sure, and who grew so much in love with this woman, that he could not live without her, all the power and authority of the city of Rome was in her hands, be­cause nothing was done by the people but what Ce­thegus desired, and Cethegus desired nothing but what Præcia commanded him. Wherefore Lucullus resolved to gain her, and to insinuate himself into her favour by presents, and all sorts of caresses he could devise; moreover, it was at once a great advantage to an ambitious and haughty woman as she was, to see her­self courted by such a person as Lucullus, who by that means came to have Cethegus immediately at his command. Thus the latter made it his business afterwards to praise him in all the assemblies of the people, and to procure him the government of Cilicia, which being once granted him, he stood no more in need of Præcia’s assistance, nor of that of Cethegus, for all the people, of their own accord, unanimously conferred upon him the office of making war against Mithridates, as one who could discharge it better than any other captain.” Plutarch in Lucullus. ¹

Is it not a melancholy consideration that so illustrious a man, and so worthy to command the Roman army against Mithridates, and who acquitted himself of it with so much glory, could not obtain that employment without stooping to solicit a courtezan! If there had been a Juvenal at that time, would he not have found it a sufficient reason to exercise his satirical wit? Would he not have said:

Difficile est Satiram non scribere, nam quis iniquæ
Tam pattens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se.

Juven. Sat. 1, ver. 30.

'Tis difficult from satire to refrain,
When such vile practices Rome’s glory stain.

The worst of all is, that such disorders have been revived a thousand times, in all parts of the world. This way to preferment has always been practised. It has raised to a great fortune not only those who were unworthy of it, but even those who deserved it. Many have carried an unjust cause by this means, and some, who had a just cause, would have lost it without such a support. People sometimes wonder, to see some men rise fast to eminent dignities. They dp not ascend by degrees, but fly from the lowest to the middle, and from that to the highest. For what reason? will people say. What has he done? Though he be a deserving man, he neither equals nor excels such and such, who remain a long time in the same stations. The solution of all this is, that some powerful woman protects him by the credit she has gained, and which she preserves at the expence of her virtue. The same complaints will be made a thousand years hence, if the world continues so long, and as a private man is not able to reform this confusion, it will be found Observe, that I do not say it would be right to do so. Note by the Author. -- Well guarded M. Bayle. Ed. ² that prudence may permit him to make use of it, as Lucullus did; and, if an ambassador scruples to take advantage of it, he will be blamed. M. Leti, speaking of the caprices which may hinder an ambassador from serving his prince well, relates two examples of it. A Spanish ambassador, at the court of Rome, under Urban VIII, having received orders to discover the intrigues of cardinal Antonio, learned from a Roman abbot, that there was but one way to lead him to it, He would not take it, because he must have flattered a mistress of that cardinal, and he gained but little light into the secret. I shall set down M. Leti’s own words. “He conceived it particularly difficult to penetrate the intrigues of cardinal Antonio, both because he was faithfully served by

his domestics, and used precaution; but, as this cardinal idolized women, the abbot thought, that by the help of Cadora, at that time in great favour with the cardinal, he might facilitate the ambassador’s affairs, and he put him in a way of obtaining what he pleased from that mistress. The ambassador was not a little shocked at this proposal, answering, that ‘ this was not a proposition to be made from a Roman abbot to a Spanish ambassador; that it was inconsistent with his conscience, and the grandeur of the monarchy, thus servilely to court the favour of a harlot;’ and thus the cardinal did his business with France, without the ambassador’s being able to come at the secret.” Leti, Ceremoniale Politico, Parte 1. lib. 1. pag. 76, 77.  ³

The other example is of a fresher date; it is that of a Spanish ambassador in England in the reign of Charles II. You will find in the following words what advice was given him, and his answer to it. “This person, talking with an English lord, his great friend, who had formerly been devoted to that crown, about the most proper means of drawing the king of England openly to espouse the protection of Flanders, by an immediate assistance; the lord answered: ‘ that all methods were good; but that he looked upon that of the duchess of Portsmouth, the king’s mistress, to be the best.’ The ambassador, with a sort of Spanish rhodomontade, answered in disdain: “My lord, I had rather my king should lose half his dominions, than preserve any part of them by the favour of a courtezan.’ And, indeed, he did nothing, while Barillon, the French ambassador, succeeded in every thing. What means he employed I do not concern myself about. I know him to be a wise and prudent man.” Leti, ibid. pag. 78, 79. ⁴

Cicero relates that “Chelidonis, a woman of an ill

life, loved Verres, and had a very great power over him. All those who were at law had recourse to her when he was praetor, and, there being no other way to succeed, some persons of honour, and whose cause were good, were forced to go and solicit him at the house of Chelidonis.” This baseness is eloquently described by the orator. It seems that the father-in-law, the uncle, and one of the tutors of a pupil seeing him threatened with a great law-suit, applied themselves to Marcus Marcellus, another of the youth’s tutors. Marcellus went to desire Verres to protect the pupil’s innocency, but did not obtain any promise. It was then that, all other means failing, they had recourse to Chelidonis. “Quum sibi omnes ad istum allegationes difficiles, omnes aditus arduos ac potius interclusos viderent, apud quem non jus, non aequitas, non misericordia, non propinqui oratio, non amici voluntas, non cujusquam autoritas pro precio, non gratia valeret, statuunt, id sibi optimum esse factu, quod cuivis venisset in mentem, petere auxilium a Chelidone: quæ isto praetore, non modo injure civili, privatorumque omnium controversiis populo Romano praefuit, verum etiam in his sartis tectis dominata est. Venit ad Chelidonem C. Mustius eques Romanus publicanus, homo cum primis honestus: venit M. Junius patruus pueri, frugalissimus homo, et castissimus: venit homo summo honore, pudore, et summo officio spectatissimus ordinis sui P. Potitius tutor. O multis acerbam, ô miseram, atque indignam praeturam tuam, ut mittam cætera, quo tandem pudore tales viros, quo dolore, meretricis domum venisse arbitramini? qui nulla conditione istam turpitudinem subissent, nisi officii necessitudinisque ratio coegisset Cicero Orat. in Verrem. lib. i. cap. 51, &c. ⁵—Finding it difficult to lay before him any proofs, and that all access to him was denied them, since neither right, nor equity, nor pity, nor the request of a neighbour, or desire of a friend could prevail on him, they determined to apply to Chelidonis, as the properest means they could think of, who, during his praetorship decided all the law suits of the people of Rome. Caius Mustius, a Roman knight, and farmer of the revenues, a man of distinguished honour, went to Chelidonis, together with M. Junius, the young man’s uncle, a most frugal and chaste man, and P. Potitius, his tutor, a man of the greatest honour, and modesty, and the most distinguished of his rank. How ungrateful to many, how wretched, how unworthy a praetorship was your’s. To say no more, with what confusion, think you, must Such men apply to a harlot; men who would upon no terms, have complied with such meanness, had not duty and necessity obliged them to it?” They found her surrounded with persons who were at law, and before they could be heard, they were obliged to wait till she had dispatched them. At last it came to their turn; the business was proposed to her, her good offices were desired, and money was offered her. She answered them like a courtezan. ‘ I will serve you with all my heart, and will speak earnestly to him about it;’ but the next day she declared ‘ that she could not prevail with him, and that he expected a good sum of money.’ "Veniunt, ut dico, ad Chelidonem. Domus erat plena, nova jura, nova decreta, nova judicia petebantur. Mihi det possessionem, mihi ne adimat, in me judicium ne det, mihi bona addicat. Alii nummos numerabant, alii tabulas obsignabant. Domus erat non meretricio conventu, sed praetoria turba referta. Simul ac potestas primum data est, adeunt hi quos dixi, loquitur Mustius, rem demonstrat, petit auxilium, pecuniam pollicetur. Respondit illa, ut meretrix, non inhumane, libenter ait se esse facturam, et se cum isto diligenter sermocinaturam, reverti jubet, tum discedunt: postridie revertuntur. Negat illa posse hominem exorari, permagnam eum dicere ex illa re pecuniam confici posse.” The chamber counsellors had nothing to do; no one went any more to them, but all applied to Chelidonis; she regulated the judgments, the praetor revoked his sentences, and gave quite contrary ones, according as she suggested to him. Cicero describes this excellently well. “Quæso redite in memoriam, judices, quæ libido istius in jure dicendo fuerit: quæ varietas decretorum, quæ nundinatio, quam inanes domus eorum omnium, qui de jure civili consuli solent, quam plena atque referta Chelidonis: a qua muliere quum erat ad eum ventum, et in aurem ejus insusurratum, alias revocabat eos inter quos jam decreverat, decretumque mutabat; alias inter alios contrarium sine ulla religione decernebat, ac proximis prulò ante decreverat.” Cicero in Verrem. ⁶

A young man of quality could not name this creature without great reluctance. Cicero did not fail to cry out, ‘ What a shame is it, that a praetor should perform the functions of his office, as it pleased a woman, whom Domitius thought he could not name without offending modesty.’

Arts. Cethegus and Chelidonis.

Resentment when rejected.

Those who are best acquainted with affairs of gallantry, say that it is very imprudent to play the part of a tempter, when their design is nothing more than to try the virtue of a woman; for they run a very great hazard, if they go so far as to gain her consent. The affront they do her, by neglecting the favourable disposition she is in, fills her with resentment, which puts her upon inventing a thousand ways to revenge

herself; she cannot bear to remember that she has been deceived, and that the weakness she has discovered has produced nothing; she cannot, I say, think upon this without violent transports of rage, which her deceiver has reason to dread. It is much worse when a woman has declared herself first, and made advances which have met with ill success. Woe to the map she has tried in vain; she meditates nothing but his ruin. The patriarch Joseph is a proof of this, and besides this great example in holy writ, the history of the heroic times will furnish no less shining instances of the same: read the adventures of Bellerophon, and those of the chaste Hippolytus. The history of the following ages will also supply us with something of the like, were it only in Fausta, the false accuser of Crispus, who would not gratify her lust. Juvenal has well observed, that if the shame of such a denial inflame hatred, in that case a woman shows the greatest cruelty.

Sed casto quid forma nocet?quid profuit olim
Hippoly to grave propositum? quid Bellerophonfi
Erubuit nempe hæc ceu fastidita repulsa:
Nec Stenobæa minus quam Cressa excanduit, et se
Concussere ambæ, mulier sævissima tunc est
Cum stimulos odio pudor admovet,

Juvenal, Sat. x, v. 324.

She may be handsome, yet be chaste you say,
Good observator, not so fast away.
Did it not cost one modest youth his life,
Who shunn’d th’embraces of his father’s wife? And was not t’other stripling forc’d to fly,
Who coldly did his patron’s queen deny?
The ladies charg’d them home, and turn’d the tale,
With shame they redden’d, and with spite grew pale.
’Tis dangerous to deny the longing dame,
She loses pity who has lost her shame.

Dryden.

An empress, a queen, and in general ladies of the

highest rank, are especially to be dreaded when their enticements are slighted; their quality makes them more sensible of the injury, and gives them greater opportunities of revenge: to them may be well applied these words of Juno in Virgil:

Mene incepto desistere victam?

Virgil, Æneid, lib. I, ver. 37.

Must I then vanquished quit the form’d design?

Upon such occasions a contempt of beauty is an offence which sinks deep into the heart.

Manet alta mente repostum
Judicium Paridis spretæque injuria formæ.

Id. Ibid, ver. 26.

Deep graven in her heart the doom remain’d
Of partial Paris, and her form disdain’d.

Id.Ibid, ver.26

I know not whether Lactantius had made his disciple Crispus, the son of Constantine, read the history of Phædra; it might have been of some service to him. —Art. Feithius.

(Asserted Superiority of.)

Lucretia Marinella, or Marinelli, a Venetian lady of a great deal of wit, published among other books, one entitled, “La Nobilita e l’eccellenza della donne con diffetti e mancamenti degli huomini,—The excellency and nobleness of women, with the defects and faults of men,” carried the pretensions of her sex not only to an equality, but also to a superiority above the male. I shall name two other authors who have done the same. One is Madame de Gournay, who wrote a little book “of the equality of men and women.” Her pretension was disapproved by Mrs. Schurman. Anna Maria à Schurman. in Opuscul. p. 85. ⁷ “The short discourse of the excellent Madame de

Gournay, as I cannot, because of its elegance and gracefulness disapprove it; so neither I dare, nor will, in all things approve it; though for brevity’s sake, I have referred to the testimonies of the men of wisdom which she hath produced.” The other author is one who published at Paris, in 1673, a book entitled, “Of the Equality of the two sexes, a discourse physical and moral, wherein is to be seen the importance of clearing the mind from prejudices.” He thought that some would write against him, and he was threatened with it, but finding that none appeared to refute him, he himself wrote against his own book; for he published a treatise in 1675, “Of the excellency of men, against the equality of the sexes.” If we consider well all that he says, we shall discover that be had no design to confute his first book, but rather to confirm it indirectly. However it be, these two books were reprinted at Paris in 1679. It was a long time before the author of them was known. I must tell you, by the way, that he was an ecclesiastic of Lorraine, who embraced, at Geneva, the Protestant religion.

A Mrs Jacquette Guillaume also published at Paris, in 1665, a book entitled, “The Illustrious Ladies, wherein is proved, by good and strong reasons, that the Female Sex in all respects exceeds the Male.” There was likewise published at Paris, a book in 8vo. in 1643, with this title, “The generous Woman, who proves that her Sex is more noble, more politic, more valiant, more learned, more virtuous, and more frugal than that of Men; by L. S. D. L. L.” I add, that Mr. Scheffer informs me, that there was printed at Upsal, in 1650, a treatise entitled, “La donna migliore del huomo, Paradosso,” written by Jacobus del Pozzo (i. e. de Puteo).

This thesis had been a long time maintained by some wits. Jerom Ruscelli published, in 1552, an Italian book, wherein he gave the superiority of perfection to the women, “Che la Donna sia di gran

unga piu mobile et piu degna dell’ Huomo.” He observes that Plutarch, John Boccace, il Cortegiano, l’Agrippa, il Portio, il Lando, il Domenichi, and several others handled this question; notwithstanding which, we do not find that their reasons have made the world believe that the women surpass the men. He quotes Maggio, and Bernardo Spina, who wrote in defence of the same opinion. I have a book, which was printed at Paris in 1617, with this title, “A Reply to the Anti-malice, or Defence of Women, of the Sieur Vigoureux, otherwise called By re-Comte-Robert, by the Sieur de la Bruyere, a gentleman of Berne.” This gentleman declares, that his intention is to confute what the author of the “Defence” has said, that “the women are better than the men, and more virtuous in all things.” Observe, that this “Defence” was the refutation of a piece of one James Olivier, and that • he who published it, to have a larger field of discourse, undertook to appropriate to the men what was attributed to the women in the book which he refuted. You will find other writers of this opinion enumerated in the second tome of Vigneul Marville’s Miscellanies, at the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth pages of the Dutch edition.—Art. Marinella.

Women of Babylon.

Jeremiah’s Letter, concerning the immodesty of  the Babylonian women wants a commentary, taken   |out of Herodotus. This is Jeremiah’s text: “the   women also, with cords about them, sitting in the ways; but if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with him, she reproacheth her fellow, that she was not thought as worthy as herself, nor her cord broken.” To understand this right, we must have recourse to Herodotus, who informs us that there was a law at Babylon, which obliged all the women of the country to seat themselves near the temple of Venus, and there to wait for an opportunity of lying with a

stranger. They were all forced to go through this ceremony once in their lives. The rich sat in their coaches, and had a great number of domestics to attend them; the others had only an inclosure of cords, that is, they formed certain ranks, which were separated from each other with cords, but in such a manner, that there was liberty to go in and out, that strangers might pass freely in the intervals, and make choice of her who best suited their taste. When they had made their choice, they cast money into her lap, and led her aside, in order to enjoy her. They put up a prayer for her to the goddess of the temple. These women were not suffered to refuse any stranger, nor the money given them, how small soever was the sum; they were obliged to follow the first stranger who threw them money. Observe, that these sums were apppointed for religious uses. “Γίνεται γὰρ ιερὸν το τὸ ἀργὑριον,—this money is held sacred.” After the performance of this act, they might return to their houses; the devotion or expiation which the goddess required was accomplished. Those who were beautiful or agreeable were soon dispatched, and relieved from duty; but the ugly waited long for the propitious hour to satisfy the law: some were so unfortunate, that three or four years’ waiting did not end their noviciate. This removes all obscurity from Jeremiah’s words. Each of these women were kept in a little cell, bound about with cords, and did not come out but by breaking the cord; after which they insulted over those who were yet in the inclosure. Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary, ridicules this account by Herodotus as utterly monstrous and incredible. Its explication of the passage of Jeremiah, however, if illusive, is singularly apt.—Ed. ⁸   

Who can sufficiently bewail the monstrous alliance preserved by Paganism, between the worship of the gods, and the most filthy passions? It might justly

have been called “the easy devotion,” if the comedy  had contained more acts and more scenes, and if there had not been a disadvantageous mixture for the ugly; for three or four years’ patience was a hard penance for one single rencounter. Martin del Rio retracted what he had said on the words I have quoted from the book of Baruch. He thought they were to be understood of certain ligatures practised to make themselves loved. See his Magical Disuisitiosms— Art. Babylon.

(Goddesses and Female Saints copied from beautiful Women.)

Venus rising out of the sea was the picture of Campaspe mistress to Alexander the great, or else that of the courtezan Phryné. Whilst Phryne was young she served for an original to all those who drew the goddess Venus. The Venus of Cnidus was copied from the face of a courtezan whom Praxiteles was passionately fond of. Pliny mentions a painter who always drew the goddesses after some or other of his mistresses. “Fuit Arellius” says he, “Romæ celeber, paulo ante divum Augustum, nisi flagitio insigni corrupisset artem semper alicujus fteminæ amore flagrans, et ob id deas pingens, sed dilectarum imagine.—“Arellius,” says he, “was eminent at Rome a little before the time of Augustus Cæsar, but he basely prostituted his art, being always mad after one woman or other, and for that reason painting goddesses in the form of his favourites.” Nor are the Christians free from this licentiousness; see the thesis of Voetius: “Aperit Molanus in libro de picturis sacris, cap. 29...Visæ inquit quandoque in locis ubi non decuit divorum imagines viventium adhuc hominum ora vultusque referre, ut hoc umbratico velamento illorum quos amabant effigie pascerent oculos. Ad quas selectas et procacitur venustas formas pingi solere imagines deiparæ virginis probe norunt pictores.

Molanus in his treatise of holy paintings, shows what practices have been used. ‘ Pictures,’ says he, ‘ have been seen in very improper places, representing saints whose features have exactly answered to those of persons still living, that under this symbolical dress they might feed their eyes with the effigies of those they loved. From what select and beautiful, but dishonest originals, the pictures of the virgin mother have been drawn, painters well know.’” I shall conclude with a passage out of the News from the Republic of Letters. “The author explains a medal of Julian the apostate, upon which on one side is seen Serapis perfectly resembling Julian, and on the other the figure of a Hermanubis. It was no unusual thing to see statues of men altogether like those of some God; flattery or vanity has often been the cause of this disorder. Pliny mentions a painter who always drew the goddesses like the mistresses he was in love with. This might give Justin Martyr occasion to say, laughing at the pagans, that they worshipped their painters’ mistresses. But I know not whether it is very fair to make the heathens responsible for the fancies of a Zeuxis or a Lysippus. What would be said of a man that should pretend that those who believe they worship the image of St Charles Borromeo, worship nothing but a picture made at pleasure and the caprice of a painter? I say this because though that saint was very homely, he is painted very handsome. This is an unavoidable thing in all religions where images are used: you must submit to the licence of workmen, and must depend upon them for the air and shape of the objects of devotion. ‘ Deos ea facie novimus qua pictores et fictores voluerunt. Cicero de Nat. Deor. 1. ⁹—We know the gods only by such faces as the painters and sculptors please to give them,’ said the men of sense among the pagans; yet this ought not to encourage such abuses: for instance, it was not to be borne that the image of the virgin should be made at Rome from the picture and resemblance of a sister to pope Alexander VI who was indeed very beautiful, but not very virtuous.”—Art. Flora.

WORLD. (Eternity of.)

All Christians are agreed that nothing besides God hath eternally existed, but several assert that he might have actually created the world as soon as he formed the decree in order to its production, whence they conclude that the world might have existed from all eternity, since the decree for its production is undoubtedly eternal. Several also affirm that it ii impossible for a creature to be eternal; each of these parties is stronger in objections than solutions. But this dispute which is rendered so tedious and difficult, would soon cease if the disputants of each side would but explain themselves clearly, and remove the ambiguities about eternity. The question ought to be put thus: Is it possible that God and his creatures may have always existed together? and then one would not so boldly take the negative side; for this term—the eternity of the world,—a term which startles so many people, would not here make such an impression on the mind. And the better to remove this stumbling block, it should be said that a creature which had always co-existed with God would not be eternal, for which this reason ought immediately to be alleged, that the duration of creatures is successive, and that eternity is a simple duration which essentially excludes the time past and the time to come. By this essential difference betwixt the duration of God and that of the creatures, we should put an end to almost all the dispute, and each party would find their account in it. We should grant to

those who deny that a creature can be eternal, that they are in the right, and should not deny that it is possible for God and the creature to have always existed together, since it is certain that a cause doth not comprehend in its idea a priority of time with respect to its effect, and that this is especially true with respect to an omnipotent cause, which needs only will in order to produce actually whatever it pleases. M. Poiret has very clearly apprehended the ambiguities which perplex this controversy, and render it in a manner a dispute about words. He judiciously observes that it is not true that the creatures would be eternal if their existence had no beginning, and tells us that those who affirm it have a wrong notion of eternity. “It was objected to those (Plato and Aristotle as it is said) who maintained that the world is without a beginning, that if it was so the world would be eternal. They who made this objection, must have imagined that eternity is an order of succession of infinite moments of time, without beginning or end; but this shows that they know not what  eternity is. It is false that the world would be accounted eternal, if we say either that it has always existed, or that there is not any moment of its time which is not preceded by another; for even if this was so, the world would only be temporary and dependent, neither would this derogate from the eternity or the power of God.” Petrus Poiret, Cogitat. Rationales de Deo, Anima, et Malo, lib. iii. cap. xvi. ¹⁰ Observe, by the by, that this author does three things; we have just now seen the first, which is the false consequence that the world would be eternal if it never began. In the second place he owns that the arguments commonly alleged against those who say that the world had no beginning, are weak. He excuses those who not having the light of revelation, did not believe the beginning of the universe. He tells us that when he was writing that chapter, he was persuaded it was not possible to find any good reasons against those of that opinion, though he had long searched after better proofs than all those which he had read, and which appeared weak to him. “Postquam aliorum quæ occurrerunt rationes infirmas deprehenderem, alias diu in mente mea quæsieram, putavi seposita revelatione non posse ex lumine naturae demonstrari mundum sic esse, ut prius non fuerit.” Id. Ibid. pag. 439. ¹¹ At last he brings a proof which offered itself to his mind whilst he was writing; he brings it, I say, against these people; but an objection was made to him, to which he gave an answer that does not take off the force of it.

Here are other quibbles which prevail in this dispute. Those who say that the creatures did not always co-exist with God, are obliged to own that God existed before them. There was, therefore, such a thing as before when God existed alone; it is not therefore true, that the duration of God is an indivisible point: time therefore preceded the existence of the creatures. These consequences make those gentlemen fall into a contradiction; for if the duration of God is indivisible, and without either time past or time to come, it follows that time and the creatures began together, and if so, how can we say that God existed before the existence of the creatures? That phrase is improper and contradictory, and the following are no less so: God might have created the world sooner or later than he did create it; he might have done it one hundred thousand years sooner, &c.

They do not attend to this, that by making eternity one indivisible instant, the hypothesis of the beginning of the creatures is weakened. How do you prove that the world did not always exist? Is it not from the argument that there was an

infinite nature which existed while the world did not exist? But can the duration of that nature set bounds to that of the world? Can it hinder the duration of the world from extending itself beyond all the particular beginnings which you would assign for it? You say that the creatures want only a point of indivisible duration, to be without a beginning; for according to you, they were only preceded by the duration of God, which is an indivisible instant. You will be answered that they did not therefore begin, for if a stick wanted only one point (I mean a mathematical point) to be four feet long, it would certainly have the whole extent of four feet. This is an instance that may be founded on the common definition of the duration of God, a definition much more incomprehensible than the doctrine of transubstantiation; for if it is impossible to conceive that all the members of a man should be contained distinct from each other within the compass of a mathematical point, how shall we conceive that a duration without beginning or end, and which co-exists with the successive duration of all creatures, is comprised in an indivisible instant?

This hypothesis raises another difficulty in favour of those who assert that the creatures had no beginning. If the decree of the creation doth not comprehend a particular moment, it never existed without the creatures; for it ought to be understood under this phrase, I will that the world exist. It is visible that by virtue of such a decree, the world must have existed at the same time with this act of the will of God; but since this act had no beginning, neither had the world any. Let us suppose then that the decree was conceived thus: I will that the world exist in such a moment. But how can we suppose that, if the duration of God is an indivisible point? Can this or that moment be chosen, rather than any other

in such a duration? It seems therefore, that if the duration of God is not successive, the world could not have a beginning. This objection was proposed to M. Poiret in the year 1679; he returned an answer which no way removes the difficulty, and even takes away all means of doing it; for he supposes that it is not possible there should be any moments before the existence of the creatures; nay, he seems to suppose that the decree of the creation was only made at the very moment that the creatures existed. Let us cite his words: “Neither could the world or any moment of time exist, without another decree, namely that when God said, ‘ I will that the world exist,’ and then (as it is in the scripture) ‘ he spoke and the things were made;’ then the world immediately came into being. This was the first moment of its existence, and before this there was no possible moment; and it is contradictory to conceive that before the first existence of the world, there were several moments of time, and that one of them was singled out for the first moment of its existence, while the rest passed away without any world; for time is a mode of a creature considered as existing.” Poiret, pag. 680. ¹² For my part I make a quite different supposition, and believe it solves the difficulty. I suppose that among the possible beings which God knew before he made the decrees of the creation, we ought to reckon a successive duration without beginning or end; and whose parts are as distinct from one another, as those of a possible extension, which God likewise knew before his decrees as a Being infinite, according to the three dimensions. He left in the state of the things possible, part of this infinite duration, and made decrees for the existence of the other. He chose such a moment as he thought fit in this ideal duration for the first which should exist, and fixed to it the act by which he decreed the creation of the world. This is the reason why the eternity of that act doth not prove the eternity of the world. Thus we see again, that the indivisibility of the real duration of God, doth not prove that the world did not begin. We have also in this ideal or possible duration, the true measure of time; others look for it in vain in the motion of the heavens; others yet more chimerically assert, that time is an ens rationis, a manner of conceiving things, and that without motion or the thought of man, there would be no such thing as time. A gross absurdity: for though all created spirits should perish, though all bodies should cease to move, there would be still a successive, fixed, and regular duration in the world, which would correspond to the moments of the possible duration known to God, and according to which he would preserve every thing more or less, for so many years. An extension which is at rest, requires no less to be created every moment of its duration, than an extension which moves. The conservation of creatures is always a continual creation, whether they move or rest in the same situation. The true measure of the absolute quantity of things, either with respect to extension or time, is only to be found in the ideas of God. Man knows nothing of it; he is only acquainted with relative magnitude or littleness. The same space of time appears to him short or long, according as he passes it with pleasure or pain. The very hour which seems short to one, appears long to another.—Art. Zabarella.

(Plato's doctrine of the creation of.)

This explication of Plato’s doctrine concerning the creation of the world and the original of evil, is one of the most beautiful passages in Plutarch; and though this doctrine is not true, it deserves to be

read with attention, and contains several excellent ideas and sublime conceptions of a surprising fertility, with regard to those who know how to make good use of consequences. This is the reason which engages me not to curtail this passage. How many people who shall read this, would, not take the pains to recur to Plutarch, if I only mentioned the pages of the author?

“The world,” saith Heraclitus, “was neither created by a god nor by a man,” as if he had been afraid that in case we denied that God is the creator of the universe, we should be obliged to own that man was the architect of it. But according to Plato’s opinion, it is far better to own that the universe was created by God, and in our songs of praise to ascribe the glory of this structure to him, the frame itself being the noblest masterpiece, and God the most excellent architect and the best of all causes; yet that the substance and matter of the universe were not created, but always subject to the ordering and disposal of the builder, so as to be made as like himself as possible; for the creation was not out of nothing, but out of matter wanting beauty and perfection, like the rude materials of a house, a garment, or a statue lying first in shapeless confusion. For before the creation of the world, the universe was a chaos, that is, a confusion or disorder of things; yet this chaos was neither without a body, without motion, nor without a soul; but the corporeal part was without form or consistence, and the moving soul was rash and inconsiderate, without reason or conduct. God did not make a body of that which was incorporeal, nor a soul of that which was inanimate; as the musician doth not make the voice, but only renders it sweet, tuneful, and melodious; or as the dancer doth not make motion, but only renders it graceful and well-timed; thus God did not make the tangible solidity of bodies, nor the imaginative or moving faculties of the soul;

but having found these two principles, the one obscure and dark, the other turbulent and extravagant; both imperfect, disordered, and confused; he so ordered and disposed of them both, that of these two principles he made the noblest and most excellent of all animals: therefore the substance of body is no other than what Plato calls the nature susceptible of all things, and the seat and nurse of all created beings. As to the substance of the soul, in the book intituled Philebus he calls it infinity, or the privation of all number, measure, and proportion; admitting neither of more nor less, greater nor smaller, like nor unlike. As to that substance, which he says in his Timaeus is mixed with the indivisible nature, and becomes divisible in bodies, we must not understand it to be a multitude in unity; or length and breadth in points, for these are qualities more proper to bodies than to the, soul; but it is that unlimited principle moving both itself and other substances, that which in several places of his writings he calls necessity, and in his treatise of laws he openly styles the disorderly, evil, and mischievous soul; for such was the soul of itself, but at length it was endowed with understanding, ratiocination, and harmony, that it might become the soul of the world. Thus that all-receiving and material principle had both magnitude, space, and distance, but was void of beauty, form, and proportion; however, all these it attained when it came to be formed into seas and land, the heavens, the star, and that infinite variety of plants and living creatures. Now as for those who attribute to matter and not to the soul, that which Plato in his Timaeus calls necessity, in his Philebus infinity and the privation of measure and proportion, they cannot maintain it to be the cause of evil, because Plato always supposes that this matter is void of form or figure, or any other quality or virtue, and compares it with oils that have no scent, such as the perfumers use in composing their perfumes. For Plato could not possibly suppose that to be the cause and principle of evil, which of itself, is sluggish without any active quality, motion, or inclination; and at the same time give this infinity the epithet of wicked and mischievous, and call it necessity, which in several cases is repugnant to, and rebellious against God. For this necessity which defeats heaven (as he says in his Politics) and overturns it, together with that concupiscence which is born with us, and that confusion of ancient nature which was void of order before it was formed into its present beautiful shape;—whence came they to be conveyed into the various forms and beings if the subject, which is the first matter, was void of all quality whatever, and deprived of all efficient cause? The architect being in his own nature good, intended a frame the nearest approaching to his own perfections. For besides these two there is no third principle, and if we admit there is evil without any precedent cause or principle that produced it, we must fall into the difficulties and perplexities of the Stoics: for of those principles that have a being, it is not possible that either the good one, or the other which is void of all quality, should produce evil. But Plato did not act like those who came after him, who not having perceived and understood the third principle and third cause which is between God and matter, fell into the most strange and absurd proposition imaginable, affirming that the nature of evils came forth casually, and by I know not what accident, or came forth of itself: yet they will not allow a single atom of Epicurus to shift ever so little in its place; for this, say they, would infer that there is motion without any prior cause.

“Nevertheless they affirm, that vice and wickedness, with a thousand other deformities and imperfections of bodies arise by consequence, and without any other efficient cause. But Plato does not say so, for

denying that the first matter hath any quality, and removing from God, as far as is possible, the causes of evil, he has written thus concerning the world in his political discourses. ‘The world,’ says he, ‘received from its maker all things beautiful and good; but as to things evil, wicked, and unjust in heaven, they proceeded from its exterior habit, and former disposition, and it conveys them to the several animals on the earth.’ A little lower in the same Treatise he adds: ‘ In process of time, when oblivion encroaches upon the world, the distemper of its ancient confusions prevails more and more, and the hazard is, lest being dissolved, it should again be sunk, and plunged into the immense abyss of its former confusion.’... Plato does indeed give to matter the titles of mother and nurse; but the cause of evil he makes to be the moving force residing within it, and which in body is divisible, a motion not governed by order and reason, though not without a soul, which, in his treatise of laws, he expressly calls the soul repugnant, and contrary to that other, which is the cause of all good. For though the soul be the cause and principle of motion, yet it is the understanding which is the cause and principle of the order and harmony of motion. God, therefore, hath not rendered matter sluggish, but prevented it from being any longer troubled and disordered by an extravagant and inconsiderate cause: neither hath he infused into nature the principles of mutation and passion; but when it was under the pressure of all sorts of passions, and disorderly mutations, he removed all the disorders and Regularities, making use of symmetry, proportion, and number, as the most proper instruments for that purpose.” Art. Zoroaster.

XENOPHANES. (His opinion of unity, incomprehensibility, &c.)

Xenophanes was the first who taught that all things were but one sole being; and that this sole being continued always the same, and could not be subject to any change; but a more exact account of the principles of Xenophanes in their natural connexion, runs thus: first of all, he affirmed that nothing was made out of nothing, that is, to remove all ambiguity, that a thing which had not always existed, never could exist; whence he concluded, that whatever is, always existed. “But,” added he, “what always existed is eternal, what is eternal is infinite, what is infinite is but one; for if it contained several beings, one would terminate the other, and it could not then be infinite. Besides,” said he, “what is but one, is throughout like itself; for if it comprehended any difference, it would not be one, but several beings. In short, this sole, eternal, and infinite being ought to be immovable and immutable; for if it could change its place, there would be something beyond it, and then it  would not be infinite; and if it could suffer any alteration, without changing of place, something that did not always exist would begin to be produced, and something which had always existed would cease to be: but that is impossible; for every thing which not having eternally existed should begin to exist, must be produced out of nothing, and every thing which never had a beginning hath a necessary existence, and therefore cannot ever cease to be. These were his principles, if we believe Aristotle. I do not doubt but they appeared very evident to him, and that he was persuaded he had a gradation of consequences necessarily drawn from an incontestible principle. The orthodox divines will deny him that nothing can have a beginning; but would grant him that the being

which never had a beginning, is one only, infinite, immovable, and immutable; and that every being whose existence is necessary, is not obnoxious to destruction. They teach with reason, that God is not subject to any alteration; for if any change should happen in him, he would get and lose something. What he should acquire would be either distinct from his substance, or a mode identical with his substance. If it were a distinct being, God could not be a simple being, and what is worse, would be composed of an increated and created nature. If it were a mode identical with his substance, God could not produce it without producing himself; but as he exists independent of his own will, and did not give himself his being at the beginning, it follows that he can never do it. Besides, nothing that necessarily exists can ever cease to be; whence it must of necessity follow, that God can never lose what he once had. But what is called a modification, or ens inærens in alio, is of such a nature that it cannot be produced but by the ruin of another modality, perfectly in the same manner that a new figure is necessarily the destruction of the old one: wherefore if God acquire something new, he must necessarily lose some other thing; for this new acquisition will not be a substance, but an accident, or an cns inhærens in alio. Seeing therefore, nothing which necessarily exists can cease to exist, it follows that God can never acquire any thing new: thus the immutability of God is supported by evident notions.

Xenophanes added to his maxims the following one, that nothing is made out of nothing; but every accident produced anew, and distinct from the divine substance, would be produced out of nothing; wherefore he was obliged to deny that the eternal being can acquire any new mode distinct from its own substance. But he found himself very much perplexed when the continual generations in nature were objected to him.

They prove both that the universe is not one sole being, and that it contains something mutable, since it actually changes. In order to clear himself of this objection, he excepted against the evidence of the senses; he urged that they deceive us, that it is not true that there happen any generations in nature, and that they are but false appearances: but he was doubtless answered, that the appearance of the senses would not change at all, if our mind continued always the same, and if the beings without us did not change; and therefore, at least, what in us is the passive subject of perceptions, which you call the fallacies of the senses, must needs be mutable and variable: wherefore what you assert that there is no change in the universe, is not true. I cannot see that he could make any other reply than that our reason is as fallacious as our senses, and that every thing is incomprehensible to it; for if when it is founded on evidence, which is its ne plus ultra, it does not hit on truth, it is a sign that truth is a thing incomprehensible and impenetrable: now building upon evident notions, I asserted that nothing is made out of nothing; whence it necessarily follows that nothing can begin, and that every thing that once exists, exists always; which evidently proves the immovableness and immutability of all things; I had, I say, clearly comprehended this, and yet the experience of my sensations and passions convinces me that I am mutable: I have not therefore comprehended any thing with certainty, I have not therefore a faculty adequately proportioned to truth. Thus we may suppose him arguing; and thence we may conclude that the sect of the Acataleptics, and that of the Pyrrhonists owed their birth solely to the principle of the immutable unity of all things asserted by Xenophanes; but I do not affirm that he was in the right in the consequences just mentioned.

The reasons which led Xenophanes to the unity of all things, are probably the same with those of Melissus

and Parmenides, according to Aristotle’s account. They seem very subtle, though according to the manner of men of great genius, Aristotle hath described them a little obscurely, because he affected brevity. Those arguments are doubtless sophisms, as well as those which may be read above, nevertheless they might have imposed upon the readers, and I do not know whether Aristotle has always well refuted those two ancient philosophers. Consult the Jesuits of Coimbra, who have represented one of the reasons of Melissus, and Aristotle’s answer in their full force, and you will find that nothing can be weaker than this answer, and that Melissus is not guilty of false argumentation in this proposition, “if every thing that was made hath a principle, that which never was made hath no principle.” This Aristotle assures us is a manifest paralogism. “But,” added Melissus, “nothing has been made, for if any thing had been made, it would have been produced, either out of nothing or from something else; if out of another thing, it must necessarily have pre-existed, which ruins your supposition; if out of nothing, then something might be made out of nothing, which is false.” This is a demonstrative argument against Aristotle, who denied creation, properly so called; and as for his distinction betwixt a principle of substance and a principle of forms and qualities, it is insignificant in the hypothesis of the impossibility of the creation; for every substance which never began, and necessarily exists, must be immutable. It would therefore be in vain for you to seek after the principles of generations and corruptions; for there would be none if all things were uncreated, as they are according to Aristotle, who never opposed the axiom, “ex nihilo nihil fit—nothing is made out of nothing.” But after owning that this objection of Melissus, which it is impossible to solve any other way than by the orthodox Christian hypothesis concerning the creation, surpassed all Aristotle’s strength, it must be acknowledged that the other subtilties of Melissus and Parmenides were less puzzling to him, and when applied to experience, that is, to the variety of things which the universe exposes to our view, they could not appear any thing better than puerilities.

I observe by the way, that the Jesuit who commented on Cicero, de Natura Deorum, takes Xenophanes’ part against Aristotle somewhat rashly. Lescalopier in Cicer. de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. num. 28, pag. 44. ¹³ “Certainly Velleius dropped that reproach which Aristotle threw upon Xenophanes in his book of Metaphysics, where he takes notice of his being a man of a low genius or of mean elocution, and shows a great neglect and contempt of him, as being a rustic who deserved to be banished the company of philosophers. But he ascribes to Xenophanes an opinion concerning God, which does not at all savour of a low and rustic genius, viz. that what is one is God; or as Theophrastus has it, that unity, the universe, and all things, are God.” This father is very much to blame for ascribing to Xenophanes a reasonable opinion concerning the nature of God; the sentiments of that philosopher on this head are abominably impious, and amount to a more dangerous Spinozism than that which I have refuted in the article of Spinoza; for Spinoza’s hypothesis carries its antidote along with it, by the mutability or continual corruptibility which he attributes to the divine nature with respect to modalities. This corruptibility is contrary to common sense, and at once shocks those of mean parts and those of the greatest capacities; but the immutability in all respects attributed to the infinite and eternal Being by Xenophanes, is a principle of the purest theology, wherefore it is more liable to seduce us in favour of the rest of his hypothesis. On the other side, the pernicious fall of this philosopher may

prove more contagious, than Spinozism; for not being able to maintain the post to which his reason had led him, he fell into a precipice, and found fault with his reason which had perplexed him, and thrown him into nets which he could not break; he accused it of being incapable of comprehending any thing. Several others would be reduced to the like extremities, if they had not recourse to an assistant superior to reason; but the Jesuit whom I refute is not wholly to blame: he had just reason to censure Aritotle’s contempt of Xenophanes’ genius; for though a true greatness of mind and a solid force of argumentation, would not suffer a man to sink at this rate, yet it is true that a mean capacity can never fly so high as Xenophanes, nor fall like him. He argued more consequentially than Aristotle, who denying a creation, admitted an eternal matter successively susceptible of an infinity of forms. If the elephants need not fear these cobwebs, much less need the flies. It is not a meanness of capacity which makes men doubt that they are not arrived at a just certainty; it rather fills with confidence than inspires them with diffidence. Pyrrhone, lib. ix, num. 72. ¹⁴ People fall into the doctrine of incomprehensibility not by an utter ignorance of things, but by knowing them much better than the greatest part of the world, though they do not know them according to the just representation of them. Besides, there are some who direct their hypothesis to the glory of God, as if from a sense of our own weakness and of the infinity of God, we ought not to aspire to that knowledge which is a portion of the divine nature. We have spoken before of a poet who said that the gods reserved glory for themselves and pleasures for us; but these tell us that God keeps knowledge to himself and bestows opinions on us. Diogenes Laertius reckons Plato among the Sceptics for saying “that he left truth to the Gods and to their offspring, and only inquired after what is probable.” Thucydid. lib. ii, pag. m. 126, A. ¹⁵ This puts me in mind of a thought of Plutarch, which seems to me very excellent. “Wise men ought to pray to the gods for all good things: but what we ought chiefly to desire of them, is the knowledge of them in as great a degree as is proper for us, because there is no gift either greater for man to receive or more magnificent and worthy of the gods to bestow, than the knowledge of the truth. For God gives to men all other things which they want, but hath reserved this for himself, and makes use of it: he is not at all happy in the possession of vast quantities of gold, nor powerful by holding the thunder and lightning in his hand, but rather by his wisdom and knowledge; and this is one of the best and wisest things which Homer said, speaking of Jupiter and Neptune:

Ἣ μὰν ὰμφότέροισιν ὀμὸν γένος ἠδ' ἴα πάτρη,
Άλλὰ Ζεὺς πρότερος γεγόνει καὶ πλείονα ἢδη.

Both of one line, both of one country boast;
But royal Jove’s the eldest, and knows most.

“He affirms that the preference and the precedence of Jupiter was more venerable and worthy, because he was more wise and intelligent; and as for me, I am of opinion that the beatitude and felicity of eternal life which Jupiter enjoys, consists in that he is ignorant of nothing; and that of all things which ever were, none escape him. I believe that an immortality deprived of the knowledge of all things which exist and have existed, would not be a life, but a space of time only; so that we may say that the desire of understanding truth is a desire of the Deity, especially the truth of the nature of the gods; the study and acquisition of which science is, as it were, the entering or being initiated into a religion and a more holy work than a vow of chastity, or cloistering one’s-self

within a temple.” Plutarch, at the beginning of his treatise concerning Isis and Osiris. ¹⁶ Add to this, that the Christians with respect to whatever constitutes the character of speculative Christianity, make public profession of the incomprehensibility of things, and look upon those as owls and Turks who refuse to believe what surpasses the extent of their understanding. Such is the mystery of the trinity, which as Mr Nicolle owns, Nicolle, Perpétuité de la Foi, pag. 118; 119, Edit. 1666. ¹⁷ “confounds reason and prompts it to revolt. If there be any visible difficulties, they are those which are contained in that mystery that three persons really distinct have only one and the same essence, and this essence being the same thing in each person with the relations that distinguish them, may be communicated without the communication of the relations which dis-  tinguish the persons. If human reason consult herself she will revolt against all those inconceivable truths. If she pretend to make use of her own light to penetrate into them, it will only furnish her with arms against them; wherefore in order to believe them, she ought to blind herself, to stifle all her ratiocinations and perceptions, and to depress and sink herself under the weight of divine authority.” The Socinians themselves in some respects are Acataleptics; they cannot say with any sincerity, that it is an incomprehensible thing, that a self-existent nature, should be mutable. Wherefore in some respects, their rashness surpasses that of Xenophanes. The latter at last thought fit to. say, that he did not comprehend either that an eternal nature is mutable, or that it is immutable, but as to the former, they decide that it is mutable; whence it follows that a being which necessarily and from all eternity exists, is liable to destruction, which is the most contrary opinion in the world to our clear and distinct ideas.

I cannot conclude without observing that the evidence

of Xenophanes’s principles with respect to the immutability of what is eternal, is as conspicuous as the clearest ideas of our mind; so that it being incontestible on the other hand by what passes within us, that there are alterations and changes, the best course that our reason can take is, to assert that all thingshad a beginning, God alone excepted. This is the doctrine of the creation; for to pretend to explain the generations of nature, by supposing several eternal principles, the action and re-action of which diversifies what would remain uniform, if nothing external intervened, is to avoid one inconvenience and to fall into a much greater.—Art. Xenophanes.

YOUTH. (Cato's objection to a renovation of.)

It is said that Cato the Censor would not have grown young again. The words ascribed to him by Cicero upon this subject are admirable. “Quo quidem me proficiscentem haud sane quis facile retraxerit, neque tamquam Peliam recoxerit; et si quis Deus mihi largiatur, ut ex hac aetate repueriscam et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem: nec vero velim, quasi discurso spatio, ad carceres a calce revocari: quid enim habet vita commodi? quid non potius laboris? sed habeat sane; habet certe tamen aut satietatem, aut modum: non lubet enim mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi et ii docti saepe fecerunt, neque me vixisse pænitet: quoniam ita vixi, ut non frustra me natum existimem: et ex vita ita discedo, tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam ex domo: commorandi enim natura diversorium nobis, non habitandi dedit. Cicero de Senect. ¹⁸—While I am going thither, no man should easily prevail upon me to return back, or to have my flesh renewed like Pelias. If any god put it in my

choice to grow young again at this age, and to squall out in a cradle, I should certainly beg to be excused; neither would I incline to begin my race anew, after having almost reached the goal; for what is there in life so much to be desired? or rather, what things are in it not disagreeable? But let us suppose it to be a state of pleasure, there ought to be a fullness of that pleasure, or at least some bounds set to it. I am not sorry for having lived, as many learned men have pretended to be, neither do I repent of it, because I have lived in such a manner as to think that I was not born in vain. I leave the world, not as a house, but as an inn upon the road; for nature has provided us with a lodging for a short stay, not for a constant habitation.”

Observe the coherence of the maxims of this great man. He was not sorry that he had lived, he believed he had acted a glorious part upon the stage of the World, and yet he would not go through it again, if a god should offer it him; although he does not insist upon a reason which he took to be a true one, viz·.. that this life is liable to a thousand inconveniences, and has very few conveniences.—Art. Porcius;

YPRES, or IPRES.

(Satire on relation to the siege of.)

Ypres, or Ipres, an episcopal town in the earldom of Flanders, had its name from a river that runs through it. It was at first but a castle; the Normans having destroyed it, earl Baudouin, the second of the name, ordered it to be repaired in the year 880. Its stone walls were built in the year 1388, by the consent of Philip the Bold. The French took it in the year 1648, and lost it in the year following: they retook it in 1658, and restored it to the Spaniards by the Pyrenean treaty: they retook it once more in the year 1678, and the Spaniards gave it up to them by

the treaty of peace concluded at Nimeguen the same year. The disputes of Jansenism have rendered the name of Ypres famous; Jansenius being scarcely ever mentioned without observing that he was bishop of that town. The relation betwixt that town and the controversies of the Jansenists with the Jesuits, is by this means known to all the world, and hence, doubtless came that witty fancy of forging a pretended letter of the French king to M. Arnauld, dated from the camp before Ypres, in 1678. Many copies of this letter were handed about, and I remember that many persons, who were thought to have a very good judgment, found it ingenious: it was ascribed to M. Rose, secretary of the cabinet. I do not believe that it has been printed, and therefore I am willing to publish it.

A letter of king Louis XIV. to M. Arnauld, about the siege of Ypres. The play of this pasquinade on the five propositions of the Jansenists, on grace, necessity, and free-will, is humourous. --- ED. ¹⁹

Monsieur Arnauld, we are going to begin a siege, in which you may do us much service with your interest. I have five propositions to make to the gentlemen of Ypres. The first is, that I am come into Flanders to do good to every body; the second, that the command I give them to surrender up the town is not impossible; the third, that it is in their power to merit or not to merit my favour, The fourth, that I have forces with me more than sufficient to make them obey my orders; and the fifth, that though they be never so much .necessitated to surrender themselves, they will do it with entire liberty. The question is, therefore, to make them sign these five propositions; which include all the treaty of grace I design to show them. I do no/ think that they dan elude my orders, by the distinction de jure and de facto,

As to the right, I have taken all along so many towns, that time alone might serve me for a prescription in the Low-Countries, were I destitute of so many other indisputable rights. They can therefore insist only upon the fact, and I will convince them of this by a train of thirty cannon, to which I defy them to answer effectually; for they will pierce through all difficulties: by this you may judge that I shall not be so long in making them sign my five propositions, as you have been in signing those of the pope. Wherefore, I order you to summon the ban and arriereban of the Jansenists, and to leave Paris immediately, to come to the head of them, in order to sing Te Deum upon the tomb of Jansenius as a thanksgiving to God, for the happy success of my five propositions. You may, for bon-fire, bring a hundred copies of the “Miroir de la Piété Chrétienne,” to cast these good Flemings into a holy despair of ever belonging again to Spain. Afterwards you shall go into England, to manage there the lower house, which is little inclined to a peace. To conclude, I like your politics, and still more your money, which you use so advantageously to persuade people to what you have a mind to. Hereby, I am sure we shall have a peace with England and Spain, before you have it with the Jesuits. At the camp before Ypres, the 17th of March, 1678.

Art. Ypres.

ZACHARY. (Ignorance of Pope.)

Pope Zachary ordered Virgil, bishop of Saltzburg, in the eighth century, to be excommunicated and degraded from his priesthood, if, by his confession, he was convicted of having taught that there was another world, and other men under the earth, another sun and another moon. I am not ignorant that the

doctrine for which he would have this bishop to be condemned, was not the bare hypothesis of the Antipodes, for it doth not suppose any different stars from those which appear in our horizon; but yet this doctrine of the Antipodes plainly appears to be one of those which he judged worthy of the most rigorous punishments of the canon law. Was not this a prodigious ignorance? Was it not an enormous abuse of the power of the keys? I am willing to believe that Boniface imposed upon the pope, and that he falsely represented Virgil’s opinions. They had for some time been embroiled in a quarrel, in which the jealousy of learning and authority had engaged them, which made Boniface take a wrong view of Virgil’s opinions. And who knows whether he did not give a malicious turn to the fact, by annexing several consequences which he thought proper to excite fears. Some will have it that he suffered himself to be deceived by false reports, and that he judged of Virgil’s sentiments from whatever was said of them by ignorant relaters, who could not comprehend them. This is the learned Velserus’s charitable conjecture. “I cannot but approve the conjecture of some, viz. that Virgil treated of the figure of the earth in a manner that was too subtle for the comprehension of the vulgar, when he asserted that it was round, and that there were inhabitants on the other side of it, directly opposite to us, to whom we give the name of Antipodes, and that these were visited by the sun and moon no less than we. This, through the ignorance of the hearers, being ill understood, and represented in a quite different light to Boniface, gave the first grounds of offence.” But this doth not at all excuse this archbishop; his ignorance, his precipitation, his temerity in accusing the innocent at the court of Rome are undeniable facts.—Art. Virgil of Saltzburg.

ZEAL. (Various instances of false.)

Francis Junius, or Du Jon, professor of divinity at Leyden, was born at Bourges, the first of May, 1545. William du Jon, his grandfather, lord of Boffardiniere, near Issoudun, was ennobled for the good services he had done in the expedition into Navarre, when endeavours were used to restore John d’Albret, unjustly deprived of bis kingdom by Ferdinand of Arragon. He had also been a servant to the king. He left three sons, the last whereof, called Denys, studied the civil law, and took his degrees at Toulouse. He performed his studies but ill, for as he had a great spirit, he was always engaged in the quarrels of the scholars. In a word, he was a great duellist. He obtained the office of the king’s counsellor at Bourges, as a reward of a bold action he had done.

He found himself exposed to many persecutions for being suspected of Lutheranism. The superior of the Franciscans of Issoudun preached so impudently against Margaret, queen of Navarre, duchess of Berry, and sister to Francis I, as to say, that because she was a Lutheran, she deserved to be sewed up in a sack, and to be thrown into the sea. The magistrates of the place advised him not to be wanting in the respect that was due to that princess, but he laughed at their advice, and went on. preaching in the same strain. Informations were made against him, and sent to the king. The king being resolved to punish him with the same punishment to which he had adjudged the princess, ordered the monk should be brought to him. The queen of Navarre interceding for him, obtained that the punishment should be moderated. The difficulty was to seize that monk, who

had the mob on his side, so that, the magistrates of Issoudun durst not undertake the execution of his majesty’s orders. Denys du Jon, being returned from the schools where he had fought so many duels, declared, that if his majesty would give him a commission to take the monk, he would punctually execute it. This commission being dispatched for him, he put himself at the head of the archers, and in spite of the populace, he took the preacher out of the cloister, who was sent to the gallies for two years.

Du Jon, by this action, ingratiated himself with Francis I and the duchess of Berry; but he incurred the hatred of the people, and of the Franciscans, and found himself exposed to many calumnies and threatenings, and involved in processes which ended at last in a cruel massacre, committed on his person.. He was accused of Lutheranism, and his maid was suborned to attest that he did not observe fasting days. He betook himself to flight, being unwilling to trust himself with such passionate people; they seized on his estate, and the queen of Navarre was obliged to supply him wherewithal to subsist for nearly a year. At last, by the king’s authority, the accusations were brought to nothing, and then du Jon obtained a place of counsellor and colonel conferred on him by the king, besides other honorary benefits which he received from the queen, his sister, and the duke of Berry. Hear how he was killed. On Corpus Christi day, the Catholics of Issoudun, without any regard to the treaty of peace which had been just concluded, committed a thousand violences against the reformed. The king dispatched a commission to Denys du Jon, to inquire into that insurrection, and to punish the authors of it.: Du Jon repaired to Issoudun, accompanied only by three archers; he dispersed the rest in several places, before he entered the town, it being necessary to use prudence in so nice an affair. His precautions did him no service;

it was conjectured upon what account he came; the people seized on the gates, and besieged the house of the commissioner. They broke into it, killed du Jon, threw him out at the window, dragged him along the streets, exposed him to the dogs, and publicly forbad any to bury him. Taken from the Life of Franciscus Junius, page 14. ²⁰ The king’s council, out of indignation against this insolence, ordered that the walls of Issoudun should be demolished, but Cipierre, and some other lords, got the decree changed, especially because the murdered commissioner had been suspected of Lutheranism above twenty four years. The widow of the deceased desiring to prosecute the murderers, got the hatred of a great many people, and fruitlessly spent her estate.

I need not put any body in mind of the ill effects of a religious zeal. Those who are possessed with it justify a murder, and disapprove the conduct of a woman, who desires that those who have murdered her husband should be punished. But I desire my readers to consider well one thing, that religion, which is looked upon all over the world as the strongest support of the supreme authority, and which would be actually so, if it were well understood and practised, is commonly that which most enervates that same authority. There was nothing more just than the decree of Francis I against the preacher of Issoudun; a man who had the impudence to treat the king’s sister so basely in the pulpit. And yet not one magistrate durst execute the king’s orders against this mutineer, and when a gentleman has the courage to execute them, be exposes himself to a thousand persecutions, and becomes so odious, that his murderers are openly protected. The queen of Navarre was the first who advised this gentleman to leave his country, since the execution of his prince’s orders would expose him to the hatred of the bigots. An

evident proof that the court did not think itself strong enough to protect its good servants persecuted by churchmen. It is commonly said that the ministry of the gospel “est ipsis angelis tremendum,—is formidable to the angels;” we may addy “et ipsis quoque regibus’”—And to kings also.” Read the history of the Romish church, and you will find that the greatest princes have had more reason to fear the passions raised by the zealots, than the arms of the infidels; thus, that very thing which ought to be the support of the state, is very often the greatest obstacle that sovereigns meet with in the execution of their orders.

Art. Junius.

EDMUND Aubertin, in Latin, Edmundus Albertinus, minister of the church of Paris in the seventeenth century, was a very learned man. He was born at Chalons on Marne, in the year 1595. He was received into the ministry at the synod of Charenton, in the year 1618, and appointed to the church of Chartres, from whence he was transferred to Paris in the year 1631. He wrote, properly speaking, only one book, but acquired more reputation by that one, than other learned men have done by printing an hundred volumes. The subject of this work is the controversy of the Eucharist. It appeared in the year 1633, under the title of the “Eucharist of the Ancient Church.” The agents of the clergy of France complained of M. Aubertin before the king’s council, and obtained a warrant to take him into custody, for having styled himself pastor of the reformed church of Paris. This process was dropped; the time was not yet come to push this sort of matters too far. Whether the merit of the piece, without the assistance of this accident, made it sell so well, or that people concluded it must be excellently well done, because the clergy chose to attack it by way of the secular arm, it is

certain that the author had reason to be contented with the success of his book, which he revised, enlarged, and completed, with so much application, that he seems to have made it his whole business and study.

Aubertin died at Paris, the fifth of April, 1652, aged fifty-seven years. He was exposed in his agonies to the insults of the curate of St Sulpice, and in spite of his drowsiness, which was one of the principal symptoms of his distemper, he had his mind free enough to declare when that missionary questioned him, that he died in a full belief of the truths he had always professed. With great indecency the curate came at nine o’clock in the night to the sick man’s door, with the bailiff of St Germains. The mob to the number of forty, followed him with arms; he knocked at the door and pretended to be the physician, in order to gain admission. As soon as the door was opened, the whole troop rushed violently into the house, affirming that the sick person desired to make his abjuration before a priest, but that he was hindered, which was the reason of their coming to deliver his conscience from such slavery. The eldest son of the agonizing minister defended the stairs as well as he could; but at last, to hinder the mob from breaking open the chamber door, it was agreed to let the curate and bailiff only, come into the sick person’s chamber. The cries and shoutings of their guard, recovered M. Aubertin a little out of his lethargic state, so that he declared very distinctly his perseverance in the reformed religion. The curate and bailiff went out, and had much ado to make the mob retire, who in a little time after returned again, crying out that the curate and bailiff had been forced out of the bouse; and would have broken and plundered it, if two persons of note had not entreated them to desist. “The whole neighbourhood,” says David Blondel, “were witnesses of this extreme violence which exposed to the insults of his enemies the

yet breathing remains of the pious man. He who unhappily made use of this melancholy occasion, was John James Ollerius, a man of too hot and tumultuous a zeal, curate of the church of St Sulpice, and chief of the Society de Propaganda Fide, &c.” Can any one think of this without remembering that pathetic expostulation of Lucretius?

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum?
What can escape religion’s hot-brain’d zeal?
Tristius haud illo monstrum nec saevior ulla
Pestis et ira Deum stygiis sese extulit undis.

Virgil. Æn. lib. 3. ver. 214.

Monsters more fierce, offended heav’n ne’er sent
From hell's abyss, for human punishment. Dryden.

It will not suffer men even to die quietly. After having tormented them all their life-time, it lays snares for them even in the height of a distemper, which robs them of the use of their reason. It takes advantage of those moments when the soul is as sick as the body, and where

Claudicat iugenium, delirat linguaque mensque.

Lucret. lib. iii. ver. 454.

Reason grows weak, delirious thought and speech.

Art. Aubertin.

The celebrated Diana of Poitiers was a mortal enemy to the Protestants. Beza ascribes the cruel persecution which they suffered under the reign of Henry II, to the counsels of three persons, viz. the cardinal de Lorain, the duchess of Valentinois, and the marshal de St Andre. “The cardinal,” says he, Histoire Ecclésiastique, lib. ii, pag. 68. ²¹ “had the king’s conscience at his disposal, the duchess was in his possession of his body not without suspicion

of witchcraft, since she had lived in a very bad’ reputation, and had nothing in her that might reasonably (if there is reason in such passions) win or preserve the heart of such a prince. Those three persons who continually endeavoured to make him believe these two things, that the Protestants were enemies to the kingly power and great lovers of confusion, and that the right way of making amends for all the vices in which they themselves indulged him, was to exterminate the enemies of the Romish religion, did so work upon him, that from the very beginning of bis reign he made it his business to persecute and destroy the churches, as bis late father had done before him.” Here is a passage out of Brantome: “But above all she was a very good Catholic, and hated the Protestants very much, which is the reason why they hated and slandered her.” Brantome, Eloge de Henri II. ²² Varillas’s words are still more remarkable: “She declared in the principal articles of her will, which she made when she was most in favour, and which she did not revoke when she died, ten or twelve years after, that she was so zealous for the Catholic faith, that if the duchesses d’Aumale and de Bouillon, her daughters, should forsake it upon any pretence whatsoever, and embrace any of the new sects, she deprived them of her estate, and gave it to the hospitals of the places where the several parts of it lay. If one of her daughters only renounced the Catholic faith, she gave her share to her sister; and if her relations were not careful to execute her last will, she applied herself to the parliament, and entreated them by the good offices she had formerly done them with Henry II, to supply the fault of her relations.” Histoire de Henri II, lib. i, pag. 36, 37. ²³ This historian observes that this article of her will was not executed; the duchess of Bouillon made an open profession of the reformed religion, and yet had an equal share of her mother’s estate with the duchess d’Aumale. I shall set down another passage which clearly shows how much the duchess hated the Protestants. “She durst not explain her thoughts to d’Andelot; for though she made no scruple for the space of twenty years to live an unchaste life with her king, contrary to the laws of the gospel, yet she had such a nice conscience that she would not so much as speak to those who were suspected of heresy.” What extravagance! I desire the readers to make their reflections upon this odd zeal, which is so common.—Art. Poitiers.

John Quintin, professor of the canon law at Paris, in the XVIth century, was a native of Autun. He neither wanted learning nor genius. At first he liked the new opinions, as they were called, and declared his mind in an oration so plainly about it, that he was forced to remove from Poitiers; but his faith, which was only temporary, was not proof against a long persecution; he quickly accepted of a good benefice, that was given him by the order of the knights of Malta; and when he returned from that island, where he had been a domestic to the Great Master, he was made professor of the canon law at Paris, in the year 1536. That which made him most spoken of, was the harangue he made in the name of the clergy, during the assembly of the states at Orleans in December, 1560. He demanded that those of the new religion should be proceeded against with the utmost severity, which would be more surprising, if it had not been a thing practised for many ages; but though that bloody spirit had prevailed never so long, many could not forbear wondering that a clergyman should have taken upon himself to solicit such a thing.

Having demanded that all the inhabitants of the kingdom should be obliged to be Catholics; that the Non-Christians, that is, the Heretics, should not be “admitted into the conversation and company of the Christian subjects;” and that, “for the time to come, all Heretics should be forbidden to deal in any commodity (whether it were books or any other thing)” added these dreadful words: “and therefore our request is just, reasonable, holy, and catholic, and grounded upon the express command of God: who enjoins you, sire, to grant it us, repeating the said command in several places and at several times. He speaks of the idolaters and Gentiles, strangers to the law; Heretics among Christians are accounted to be such. These are the words of the said law of God: ‘ be sure not to contract any friendship, confederacy, or marriage with them; do not suffer them to inhabit the country; take no pity on them; beat them, destroy them to a man:' and then follows the reason of that command: ‘ lest they should make thee sin against me if thou believe their opinions, which will be an offence and a scandal that will raise my fury against thee, and soon after I shall destroy thee.' Sire, and you, madam, avoid those horrible and dreadful threatenings, for the salvation of your souls, and the preservation of your sceptre. This is, sire, what your clergy of France propose, and represent to your majesty, in all simplicity, obedience, humility, and submission, concerning the honour and service of God in your kingdom, and for the extirpation and abolition of what is contrary to it, namely of sects and heresies. The whole matter is more fully and particularly discussed and handled in their memorial, to which we expect an answer.” Quintin’s speech is to be found entire in the history of president la Place. It is plain that, “the most humble and devout orators of the clergy” were for shedding blood, if it were necessary, since they reminded the king of Moses’s

order and threatenings; besides Quintin had already said in express words, that his ‘‘majesty being strong, and armed with the sword,” ought to oppose the Heretics, that “in order to it, and for no other end, God had put the sword into his hands, to protect the good, and punish the wicked; and that none can deny that a Heretic is capitally wicked, and consequently ought to be punished capitally, and be subject to the sword of the magistrate.”

The French clergy acted more artfully one hundred and twenty-five years after; for in a speech they made to the king, some months before the revocation of the edict of Nantes, they declared that they did not desire his majesty should make use of his power for the extirpation of the Heretics. This artifice, after all, is no very deep one, and I do not know whether the too ingenuous plainness of the year 1560, ought not to be preferred to the dissimulation of the year 1685. Read these words of M. Claude. “Whilst the thing was only preparing, the true authors of the persecution did not conceal themselves, but used their endeavours to make the king appear in it; when things came to the last extremity, and to open force, they concealed themselves as much as they could and made the king appear alone; there was nothing to be heard then, but this sort of discourses; “the king will have it so, the king is resolved upon it, the king goes farther than the clergy desire.” By these two means they have been so cunning as to ascribe to themselves the least violent part of the persecution, and to charge the king with the most odious part.

Quintin did not foresee that the chief men of the Protestants would show a great deal of vigour in that assembly, much less that he would be extremely affected with the animadversions that should be made upon his harangue. Had he foreseen those things, he would without doubt have kept at Paris, and had rather chosen to explain some decretals to his scholars,

than to give lessons of cruelty to the king, his master, in the presence of the three estates of the kingdom. Admiral Chatillon complained so openly of Quintin’s speech, that the king and the queen-mother sent for that orator, to call him to an account for what he had said. His answer was, that he had only followed the orders and memoirs of the body whose spokesman he had been. The Protestants were not satisfied with that answer; Commentaires de l’état de la Relig. et Republ. liv. iv, folio, 152. Thuanus, lib. xxvii. ²⁴ he was obliged to declare, before the assembly of the estates that he did not design to reflect on Admiral Chatillon: but he was much more vexed at the railleries and censures that were dispersed against his declamation. He could not bear that mortification, and his affliction was so great, that he fell sick, and died of grief about the beginning of April, 1561.—Art. Quintin.

BRIEF MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS, MAXIMS, ANECDOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS.

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The matter which follows is, for the most part, such as the Editor deemed valuable or entertaining, but of too brief and miscellaneous a description to require the formality of headed Articles.

THOUGHTS, MAXIMS, ANECDOTES, AND OBSERVATIONS.

I am of opinion, with Acontius, that the sixteenth century produced a greater number of learned men than the seventeenth, and yet the former was not so enlightened as the latter. Whilst the reign of criticism and philology continued, every part of Europe produced prodigies of erudition. The study of the new philosophy, and of modern languages having introduced another taste, that universal and profound literature has disappeared; but in recompense, a certain genius more refined, and accompanied with a more exquisite discernment, has spread itself over the commonwealth of learning. People are now-a-days less learned, and more subtle. However, I would not be thought so presuming as, by my own authority, to adjudge the superiority to our age; for in this I do but conform myself to the opinion of the most acute and refined critics. “We live in an age,” says one of them, Pére Rapin’s Preface to the Comparison of Thucydides and Livy. ²⁵ “wherein people attend more to good sense and reason than any thing else, and it may be said in our commendation; that we are already better acquainted with the character of ancient authors, and more intimately familiar with their genius than those who went before us. The difference between them and us is, that in the last age people were more ambitious of erudition than they are at present.—It was

the genius of those times, wherein nothing was more in vogue than a vast capacity, a great memory, and profound litterature. They studied languages to the bottom; applied themselves to reform or restore the text of ancient authors by far-fetched interpretations; cavilled about an equivocal word, laid stress upon a conjecture, in order to establish a correction; in short, they stuck to the literal sense of an author, because they had not force enough to raise themselves up to his spirit, and to be thoroughly acquainted with him, as we have at present, because we are more reasonable, and less learned, and set a greater value upon plain good sense, than an extensive but perverse capacity.”—Art. Acontius.

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The ancient historians had a way of relating things only in the gross, so that they gave but a slight idea of some of the more minute particulars. Their method is very good; however, there is an art of specifying the facts in few words, and by the by, which would be of great use, if writers had the will, or the skill to practice it. One history in folio might, by the help of this art, remove a thousand disputes, and clear a hundred particulars, without containing above fifty pages.—Art. Archelaus.

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A certain Jesuit makes use of the thought of a heathen author to excuse the siege of Fontarabia being raised by Louis XIV. “The king’s good genius,” says he, “was so busy at St Germain’s, that she could not be at Fontarabia.” He meant that the said good genius was wholly employed upon the birth of the Dauphin. Plutarch ridicules this thought. “Alexander,” says he, “was born the sixth of June, the very day when Diana’s temple at Ephesus was burnt, as Hegasus, the Magnesian, relates, who makes an exclamation upon it, and a witticism cold enough to have quenched the conflagration of that temple. ‘ For

no wonder,’ says he, 'Diana let her temple be burnt, being sufficiently busy to midwife Alexander into the world.’ ” Plutarch’s taste here is very different from Cicero’s. “Concinnè ut multa Timæus, qui cum in historia dixisset qua nocte natus Alexander esset eadem Dianæ Ephesiæ templum deflagravisse adjunxit minime id esse mirandum quod Diana cum in partu Olympiadis adesse voluisset, abfuisset domo.—Timaeus, on this occasion, as on many others, speaks very pertinently, who having told us in his history that Alexander was born the same night that the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burnt, adds, that it was no wonder the goddess should be absent from home, when the labour of Olympias called for her presence.” Art. Fontarabia.

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An author of a historical dictionary will have a thousand occasions to observe that there are no greater flatterers of princes than clergymen. Their sermons, their prayers, their speeches, their epistles dedicatory, are so full of extravagant eulogies, that the condition they put an honest hearer or reader in cannot be better represented than by the proverb, “date mihi pelvim.” If it be said that Pepin was no king, I answer that he had the key of tongues and pens, punishments and rewards in his hands; he only wanted the title of sovereign; he had the reality, and performed the functions of it. Flatterers do not mind a vain title. They adore him more devoutly who has the power without the title, than him who has the title without the power.—Art. Alpaide.

It is a very great misfortune for a sect to have a writer for their apologist, who has a vast, quick, ready and proud wit, and who does not only aspire to the glory of a fine, but also of a fruitful pen. The main and only aim of such a writer is to confute any adversary whatsoever, whom he undertakes to oppose;

and, as he labours more for his own reputation, than for the interest of the cause, he attends chiefly to the particular thoughts which his imagination suggests to him. He regards but little whether they are agreeable to the principles of his party or not; he is well enough pleased if they serve to elude an objection, or to tire out his adversaries. Dazzled with his inventions, he sees not the wrong side of them. He foresees not the advantages which the same enemies, or another kind of antagonists will draw from them. He is only for a present advantage, and does not trouble himself with things to come. Moreover, heaping book upon book, sometimes against one sect, and sometimes against another, he cannot avoid contradicting himself, he cannot argue coherently. By this means he betrays the interests of his party, and by striving to run from one extreme, he falls into another, and successively into both. The saying of an ancient poet, “That we lose the truth by disputing too much,” will make several people believe that the disputes of philosophers resemble that about the oyster which Boileau and La Fontaine have so well described. But there is a great difference to be observed; for if the oyster that was contended for was not adjudged to either of the contending parties, it was, at least, the share of a third person. The disputes of philosophers have another effect. They make both the spectators of the combat and the combatants themselves lose the truth; nobody lays or can lay hold of it, in the sequestration in which it is left during the process.—Art. Politian.

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We read in Stobæus’s Collections, that Theocritus being asked why he did not write, answered, “because I cannot do it as I would, and I will not do it as I can.” Isocrates being at table with Nicocreon, king of Cyprus, was desired to say something, but would not, and gave this reason, “What I do know is,

perhaps, not seasonable, and what is seasonable I do not know.” This puts me in mind of that thought of Seneca; “I never would endeavour to please the people, for they do not approve what I know, and I do not know what they approve.—Nunquam volui populo placere, nam quæ ego scio, non probat populus, quæ probat populus ego nescio.—Art. Aristarchus.”

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The ancients had a proverb concerning the hatred, of brothers: “Fratrum inter feriræ sunt acerbissimæ. —Hatred among brothers is the bitterest hatred.” I fancy the hatred of sisters is still more violent, and all those times may be said to belong to the iron age, in which fraternal friendship was a rare thing: “Fratrum quoque gratia rara est.” I believe it may much better be said with respect to sisters. There are three things which commonly prevent their jealousy, the grace of God, want of qualities worthy of envy, and a great degree of stupidity; for if their age suffers them to appear together in the world, in the splendour of beauty, wit, and fortune, it is almost impossible they should love one another, and you cannot make your court to one in a worse manner than bypraising the other. Many of them have skill and firmness enough to conceal the vexation it gives them, but they are not the less sensible of it. In the 17th chapter of Leviticus, there is a decree of Moses, whereby the Jews are forbidden to have two sisters for wives at the same time, for no other reason than because, under such a conjuncture, there frequently happens between them the fiercest contention, when others not so nearly allied pass their lives with greater unanimity under the same husband.—Art. Drusilla.

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I am thoroughly persuaded that, upon a thousand occasions, it is not so great a sin to broach loose maxims of morality in verse, as to propose them in prose, and that we ought to abate much of the weight of our

censures when it is a poet who speaks. A man who should maintain dogmatically heretical propositions, would be a thousand times more criminal than if he should convey them in a piece of poetry. There is many a poem wherein the author advances a thousand things which he does not believe, and which he would never reduce into a formal disputation, and would not even say in verse, if he thought that his readers would look upon them, not as witty conceits, but as tenets and articles of faith. He takes more pains, I confess, in turning and polishing them, than if he wrote them in prose; his mind is therefore more intent upon them, he meditates more deeply upon them; but yet, after all, this is not always the true picture of what passes in his heart; he does not pretend to give either his confession of faith, or a model of belief to those that read him; and it must be acknowledged, that men are not such fools as to let themselves be as easily persuaded of a heresy delivered by a poet, as of a heresy delivered in a pulpit, or in a dogmatical work.— Art. Garasse.

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The celebrated Allatius would never either marry or enter into the priesthood. Pope Alexander VII asked him one day why he did not take orders. “It is,” answered he, Ælian. Var. Histor. lib. v. cap. xxi. ²⁶ “because I would be always ready to marry.” “But why then,” replied the Pope, “do not you marry?”          “It is,” replied Allatius, “to be always at liberty to make myself a priest.” Thus he spent his whole life in deliberating between a parish and a wife. Perhaps, when he died, he repented that he had not made choice of either of them; but he might probably have repented thirty or forty years successively if he had.—Art. Allatius.

There goes a story, that a young conceited fellow, ready to be received into orders, had the mortification of being first examined in this manner, “Musa quæ

pars orationis?” and that having answered, “Aquila non captat muscas,” replied to him, “Neque Ecclesia superbos;” and that he was sent back without ordination.—Art. Boxhornius.

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Niphus, in his Treatise of beauty, to confute the ancient philosophers, who maintained that there is no perfect beauty in the universe, alleges in his fifth chapter the example of Joan of Arragon. He is so nicely particular in drawing the picture of this fair one, that among the great number of descriptions which the Romances of Mademoiselle de Scuderi brought into fashion thirty or forty years ago, there is not one, we may venture to say, but falls short of his. He is not satisfied to describe the beauties which are visible to every eye, but passes to those “quas sinus abscondit,” and to the proportions between the thigh and leg, and between the leg and the arm. In the beginning of this Treatise, there is a letter of cardinal Pompeius Colonna to Augustin Niphus, vouching for the incomparable beauty, and the other great qualifications of Joan of Arragon. Now, no person is ignorant how far a cardinal of quality is a competent judge in those matters, “Quam elegans formarum spectator siet.”—Art. Joan of Arragon.

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Aristander sometimes explained presages from the actions of men. For example, he foretold that Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s lifeguards, should attain to the royalty, but not without much trouble. His reason was, that Alexander being mounted on a good horse, and Lysimachus not being any longer able to follow him on foot, took hold of the horse’s tail that he might not leave his master. Alexander had, by chance, wounded him on the forehead with his lance, and for want of linen, made use of his diadem to bind up that wound; it happened that this 3 5

diadem was stained with blood, and upon this Aristander grounded his prediction.—Art. Aristander.

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Several Roman writers have exposed themselves to ridicule for having imitated or admired the Latin of Accius, when the language was in much greater purity. Persius and Martial were very severe upon those persons.

Est nunc Brisæi quern venosus liber Acci,
Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiopa, ærtumnis cor luctifieabile fulta.

Pers. Sat. I. v.36.

Some fond are grown of Fustian Accius' rage,
Or love Pacuvius’ antiquated page.
So great Antiopa in grief appears,
The tragic tale dissolves them into tears.

Hear what Martial says of them in the ninety-first Epigram of the eleventh book:

Attonitusque legis “terraï frugiferaï,”
Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt.

You are extremely fond of obsolete expressions, such as “Terrai frugiferaï,” and whatever Accius and Pacuvius pour forth. Had they imitated those old authors in the manner our finest wits imitate Marot at present, and the other poets of the sixteenth century, in fables, ballads, pindaric odes, stanzas, &c. composed designedly in their antiquated style, I do not see that anybody could  reasonably have found fault with them. But I suppose they made use of that obsolete style in good earnest, and took it for a standard of eloquence, either entirely adopting it, or mixing it with the language of their own times. We are not subject at present to this distemper: more persons are disgusted even with a common expression, or run to a eagerly after new coined words than affect to retain obsolete expressions. Whenever the old language is

made use of, it is by way of pleasantry in sallies of wit, and burlesque works. It is only in Latin that authors are yet, found, who are fond of the oldest phrases. Doubtless, there was another sort of men among the ancient Romans, when Latin was come to its perfection. These were perpetual admirers of the old poets, without using, or intending to make use of their superannuated expressions; their intention was only to mortify the writers of their own time, by extolling those of antiquity above them. Horace apprehended their design perfectly when he said:

Sic fautor veterum, ut tabulas peccare vetantes,
Quas bis quinque viri sanxerunt, foedera regum
Vel Gabiis, vel cum rigidis aequata Sabinis,
Pontificum libros, annosa volumina vatum
Dictitet Albano Musas in monte locutas.

Jam Saliare Numæ carmen qui laudat, et illud
Quod mecum ignorat, solus vult scire videri,
Ingenii non ille favet, plauditque sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat, uos nostraque lividus odit.

Horat. Epist. I. lib.2. v. 25.

So fond of all that's ancient are we grown,
Nothing, forsooth, of modern date will down.
O’er the Decem vira' laws devout we pour,
And ancient leagues, with Sabine’s made, adore.
The augur’s leaves transported we admire,
And bards grown obsolete can never tire.
These flow’d not sure from any human skill;
The Muses gave them from th’Aonian hill.

When Numa’s song above our verse you raise,
And, what you understand not, dare to praise;
’Tis not, that fond of ancient bards you’re grown;
Envy forbids you to applaud our own.

This is a distemper from which our age is also exempted. We are contented to. place Greece and ancient Rome above our own age; but we do not prefer the speeches and poems of the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries before those which are made at present. Now and then in England. Ed. ²⁷—Art. Accius.

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Baldus was always ready to excuse the faults of others, which he grounded on a very good reason. “If we knew the insides,” said he, “of those we take for the best of men, we should find not one but who deserves correction.—Facile parcendum esse dicebat iis maxime qui in re levi impegissent, quoniam si quos censemus optimos, nudos conspiceremus, nullum eorum non judicaremus multis dignum verberibus.” This may seem too far stretched. Perhaps it were better to keep to cardinal Mazarin’s maxim, He said “that the greatest men were like beasts for sacrifice, which, though ever so nicely chosen, had always something bad when their entrails were examined.” I remember, on this occasion, a passage of father Rapin, which I thought very judicious the first time I read it. It is a thought he makes use of by way of apology for Cicero. “There are,” says he, “certain things at the bottom of the souls of the greatest men, which, if they could be perceived, would shew them to be as weak as others. And oftentimes the reputation of those we so much admire proceed not so much from their art in displaying their good qualities, as from that of hiding their bad ones, and not suffering themselves to be seen into.”

Art. Baldus.

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It cannot be denied that the Christians of Europe are addicted to two great vices, drunkenness and lewdness. The first of these two vices reigns in cold countries, the other in hot; Bacchus and Venus in this manner dividing the nations between them. It happens that the reformation having divided into two this part of Christianity, the portion subjected to Venus

remains as it was before, but the best part of Bacchus’s share have renounced Popery; hence it is that Spain and Italy are more forward to run down drunkenness, and to object it as a great crime to the northern nations, as if this could compensate for crimes of incontinency, and hinder one religion from silencing the other by reproaches of immorality.

Art. Eremita.

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Lewis XI. did every thing of his own head; Brezé reproached him with it in a pleasant manner one day as they were hunting. The King was mounted on a little pad: “Sir,” said he to him, “I think there cannot be a stronger horse than that pad.” “How so?” said the King. “Because,” replied the senechal, “he carries your majesty, and all our council.”—Art. BrezÉ.

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Madame de Chateaubriand was mistress of Francis I. Brantome relates very particular circumstances of these amours: “I have been told,” says he, “and have it from very good hands, that when king Francis I. had left his much favoured mistress, madame de Chateaubriand, to take madame d’Estampes, as one nail drives out another, madame d’Estampes desired the king to take all the finest jewels from the same lady de Chateaubriand that he had given her, not by reason of their great value, for at that time jewels were not so much in vogue as they have been since, but because of the fine devices which were engraved upon them, which his sister the queen of Navarre had made and composed, for she was a very good lady.” Brantome adds, that when the gentleman who was sent by the king asked for those jewels of madame de Chateaubriand, she pretended to be sick for that time, and put him off for three days; that, in the mean time, she caused those jewels to be melted out of spite, and gave them to the gentleman

in ingots, when he came for them again; and that she sent the king word that she could not suffer any body else to enjoy those devices; that the king sent her those ingots back again, (for he wanted those jewels only for the devices) and said that she had showed more courage and generosity in it, than he could have expected from a woman. Brantome adds his reflection to that of the king: “The heart of a generous woman,” says he, “provoked and slighted, can do great things.”—Art. Chateaubriand.

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M. Menage says, that the motive of the duke of Alencon’s voyage into England was his marriage with queen Elizabeth. Bodin discoursing one day with an Englishman about that marriage, the Englishman told him that marriage would never be, strangers being excluded by a law from the royalty of England. Bodin who was well informed of all the English laws, as also of those of all other kingdoms, asked the Englishman bluntly where that law was to be found? The Englishman answered as bluntly, that it was to be found at the back of the Salic law, which has since passed among us for a proverb. I have this particular from M du Puy.

Art. Bodin.

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Fulvia strangely seconded her cruel husband during the massacres of the triumvirate, and of her own head,.either through avarice or a spirit of revenge, she caused to be but to death several persons, some of whom were not so much as known to her husband. Marc Antony caused the heads of those he had proscribed to be brought to him while he was at table, and entertained his eyes a long while with that sad spectacle. Cicero’s head being one of those that were brought to him, he ordered it to be placed on the very pulpit where Cicero had made so many speeches against him. But before this order was put in

execution, Fulvia took that head, spit upon it, and putting it in her lap, drew out its tongue which she pricked several times with her bodkin, and at the same time uttered a thousand bitter invectives against Cicero. Here is a strange sort of a wicked woman! There are some villains whom we are in a manner forced to admire, because they shew a kind of greatness of soul in their very crimes; but here we see nothing but brutality, meanness, and baseness, and we cannot but be moved with indignation and contempt.

Art. Fulvia.

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The temple of Venus, upon the mountain of Eryce in Sicily, was one of the most celebrated among the ancient Pagans. It was distinguished by a thousand things, though I shall mention but one of them. The great altar was always exposed without covering in the open air, sub dio, and yet the flame was preserved alive night and day without coals, cinders, or firebrands, in the midst of the dew and the grass which grew up every night about it.—Art. Egnatia.

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The inevitable fate of those who pretend to keep a neutrality during the civil wars of either church or state is, that they are exposed to the insults of both parties at once; they get enemies without procuring themselves friends: whereas, by espousing, with zeal either of the two causes, they have, friends as well as enemies; a deplorable destiny of man, a manifest vanity of philosophical reason! It makes us look upon the tranquillity of the soul and the calmness of the passions, as the end of all our labours, and the most precious fruit of our most painful meditations; and . yet experience shews that as to the world, there is no condition more unfortunate than that of friends who will not devote themselves to the waves of factions, nor any condition less uneasy than that of such men as howl with the wolves, and follow the torrent of the

most boisterous passions. Among other advantages, they have that of not knowing they are in the wrong; for no men are less capable of seeing the faults of their faction and the good that may be found in the other party, than those who are transported with a fiery zeal and quick resentment, and who are under the power of strong prejudices. “Beati pacifici,” says the scripture, “Blessed are the peace-makers;” which is most true as to the other world, but in this they are miserable: they will not be a hammer, and therefore they are an anvil upon which both sides beat continually.—Art. Eppendorf.

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Remember St Paul's maxim, “Knowledge puffeth up,” but take notice that there is another talent which puffs up yet more. A man of an unbounded memory and reading, applauds himself on his knowledge and grows proud; but he prides himself, and presumes much more, when he fancies he has invented a new method of explaining or treating matters. We do not esteem ourselves so much proprietors of that knowledge we have drawn from books, as we do of an explanation or doctrine of which we are the inventors. It is for such inventions that we feel all the force of paternal love and tenderness. It is here we find the most bewitching charms; it is this which blinds us; it is this which makes us lose ground; this is a rock of which young persons of subtle wit cannot be too frequently warned.—Art. Arminius.

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One of those who voted for the banishment of Aristides, gave as his reason the great reputation for integrity he saw him enjoy. A citizen of Athens who gave his vote that Aristides should be banished, being asked his reason by Aristides himself, answered very frankly: “I have no knowledge of the man, but he displeases me by aspiring to the surname of just.” Thousands think like this Athenian, but have not his

candour: every thing which excels displeases them; they have a more favourable regard for a common, than a distinguished virtue.—Art. Aristides.

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Euripides is charged with having injured Medea out of complaisance to the Corinthians. It is said the Corinthians killed Medea’s sons, and a long time after got Euripides to suppose that she had killed them herself. They add, that by the great reputation of this poet such a fiction prevailed over the truth, and that the city of Corinth discharged itself of the infamy of their crime upon the memory of the innocent Medea. The author I cite does not say this translation of scandal cost the Corinthians any thing but a request, but others affirm that it cost them five talents, which sum they paid Euripides, if Parmeniscus is to be believed. There are several authors who say Medea did not kill her children, and on the contrary that not being able to carry them with her when she fled from Corinth, she took care to secure them in a temple, where she hoped they would find an inviolable sanctuary, but that the Corinthians murdered them there. It is alleged in defence of Euripides, that he was not the first that charged Medea with the murder of her children, since Carcinus introduces her pleading her cause against those who acccused her of it; and Apollodorus says positively that she killed the two sons she had by Jason. Of these two witnesses the first only can be of any service, for the latter lived 250 years after Euripides. As to Carcinus he was before that poet; he had a son named Zenocles, who disputed the tragic prize with Euripides.—Art. Euripides.

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There was a law which exempted the lands consecrated to the immortal gods from all taxes, upon which the priests of Amphiaraus pretended to that exemption, and maintained that the lands which belonged

to that deity were not subject to any taxes; and without doubt they said that the text of the law was clear and plain in their favour. The farmers made answer that those lands were no ways meant by the law, since they were consecrated to a dead man, and that it is plain that a person who is dead is none of the immortal gods. Though this argument was suggested to them by covetousness and not by a zeal for religion, which such men seldom mind when their interest is concerned in the matter, yet it was so demonstrative that they should have carried the cause, but I believe they lost it; it is a pity all the pieces of that trial are not extant. If they had been suffered to go on, they would have assessed most of the gods, and made a great many sacred lands liable to taxes, for what titles of divinity or immortality would have been proof against their exceptions? What would they not have obtained at the tribunal of an intendant who should have had orders to favour their proceedings? If any farmers of the public revenue were ordered to make an enquiry into false worships, the number of them would quickly grow less; but it would be a hard matter for them to be safe. We shall see in another place how solid this argument appeared to many Heathens: He is dead, therefore he ought not to be worshipped as a God.

Art. Amphiaraus.

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Reason is only fit to embroil all and call every thing in question; it has no sooner reared a fabric but it suggests the means to destroy it. It is an arrant Penelope who unravels all in the night that she had spun by day.—Art. Bunel.

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I take notice that it is the hardest thing in the world to find a lineal succession of most of the heroes of the commonwealth of learning. Generally, things go well enough for the first generation; the second

begins to grow obscure; the curious want some time to find it out; but the third or fourth are so confounded in the crowd, that they are no more distinguishable. Therefore it could not be said of the posterity of those great men what a Roman satirist has said touching his ancestors, and which he would have several noblemen say of theirs—

----------- Quære ex me quis mihi quart us
Sit pater, haud prompte, dicam tamen: adde etiam unum
Unum etiam, terræ est jam filius.

The fourth degree downwards is already in the dark· What shall I say of so many men illustrious by their learning, whose family is as obscure in the first degree downwards, as in the degree just before them? May not we say that they are fires which we see shine afar off in the middle of a dark night, without discovering any thing near them by reason of the obscurity around them.—Art. Gentilis.

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I do not pretend to approve of those who oppose jests to arguments, but I say it is a very great disadvantage to an argument to be able to be turned into ridicule by those who love jesting: let us prove this by an example. Suppose any body had undertaken to persuade M. de Bautru that it is better to chuse an old mistress than a young one, and had quoted the passage of Pliny, where it is said that the rams are fonder of old ewes than young ones, would he not have been confounded by this answer given him with a sneer, that is because rams are rams. A Roman lady made use of the like thought on somebody’s wondering why the females among beasts did not desire the male but when they had a mind to become mothers. The lady answered, “It is because they are beasts.” Simile dictum populiæ Marci filiæ, quæ miranti cuidam quid esset quapropter aliæ bestiæ

nunquam marem desiderarent nisi cum praegnantes vellent fieri, respondit, ‘ bestiae enim sunt.’

Art. Bautru.

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Plutarch was of opinion that reading of the poets might be very useful, but he is forced to own that it is only because they contradict themselves. “Their tenets,” says he, “are sometimes good and sometimes bad; sometimes impious and sometimes pious; that is the reason why their authority is doubtful, and has not weight enough to do harm, and it is our duty to pick out what they advance for the good cause.” This expedient of Plutarch is not a very good remedy, for the depravity of our nature prompts us rather to choose what the poets advance in favour of vice, than to pick out what they say in praise of virtue. Besides, their contradictions lead us to believe that their gravest and most devout maxims are only starts of fancy, of which they themselves are not persuaded. We imagine that they deliver them only because they have found them susceptible of all the beauties and majesty of poetry; and indeed, there are poets who having no piety or belief, have nevertheless made magnificent and admirable verses on the most sublime truths of religion. They chose that subject because it gave them an opportunity to display the finest phrases and the most shining figures of their art. Another time they would choose a subject quite opposite, provided it should favour the enthusiasms of their fancy; that is, provided it should furnish them with such ideas as they should think themselves capable to express well. Now what weight can the sound doctrine have, which we find in authors whom we believe to be of that temper?—Art. Garasse.

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Some of those jests upon the Franciscans are, without doubt, too biting and malicious. I reckon among them what is said concerning the marks or stigmata

resembling those of the wounds of Christ, on the body of Francis, arising from blows with a spit which he received from St Dominic. Somebody formed a comical notion that the two founders of these orders one day quarreled and came to blows; and that St Francis hiding himself under a bed, his antagonist armed with a spit, thrust it five or six times into his body; whereupon another carried the jest so far as to say, that St Francis’s marks proceeded from this quarrel.—Art. St Francis.

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The following wile was used by Francis Aretin to make his disciples sensible how much it concerns one to keep a fair reputation. When he found that the frequent exhortations he had made them to preserve a good reputation availed nothing, he used the following stratagem. The butchers of Ferrara left their meat all night in the shambles; he went thither with his man before day, and having broken open their boxes, carried oft’ all the meat; two of his scholars w ho had been reputed the most unlucky in the schools, were accused of that action and imprisoned. Aretin went to Duke Hercules to desire their liberty, taking the fact upon himself; but the more obstinately he maintained that he had done it, the more it was believed the prisoners were guilty; for nobody durst suspect such a thing of a professor whose gravity and wisdom was so well known. The matter being at last agreed on, he openly declared what end he had in this theft, namely to show the weight and authority of a good reputation.—Art. F. Aretin.

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It is certain that no better service can be done to the jesuits, and in general to any party which one undertakes to defame, than to publish calumnies which may be easily confuted. It is worthy of observation that among so many persons possessed with an unconquerable itch of publishing satires, so few have the art of poisoning them as they ought. Most

of those who attempt it are ignorant, that in order to succeed well in it, that is to direct the blow right, a man must religiously observe these two things: one is, to advance nothing but what may be proved, and above all to abstain from accusations which may easily be confuted. The other is, not to maintain obstinately what has been once confuted. I had forgotten a third advice, which is carefully to dissemble our passion, and to hide the appearances of it. I own that a man who acts quite contrary to these rules, finds but too many persons in his party who greedily swallow down all that he says; but it is this very thing which does a great prejudice to their cause, because the other party grow angry, and look upon their adversaries from whom so many satires so greedily swallowed, proceed, as men destitute of reason and equity. These are not reflections at random, but grounded upon experience.—Art. Bellarmin.

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The magnificence with which the Fuggers received Charles V, ought not to be forgotten. We have here a remarkable token of their riches. M. Felibien relates a very curious particular concerning the Fuggers, those famous German merchants. To shew their acknowledgment to Charles V, who on his return from Tunis had done them the honour to lodge with them as he passed through Augsburg; one day, among the magnificences with which they regaled him, they caused a faggot of cinnamon to be laid on the hearth, which was a merchandize of great price, and set fire to it with a promissory note they had of the emperor’s own hand for a considerable sum.

Art. Charles V.

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Gabriel NaudÆus observes that Rome was one of the first places where the press was set up by the means of Uldaricus Gallus, which gave occasion to bishop John Antony Campanus, corrector of it, to

compliment him with the following epigram mentioned by Faernus, and inserted at the end of Tully’s Philippics, printed by the said Uldaricus without the date of the year, though in all probability before 1470.

Anser Tarpeii custos jovis, unde quod alis
  Obstreperes, Gallus cecidit, ultor adest
Uldaricus Gallus, ne quem poscantur in usum
  Edocuit pennis nil opus esse tuis.
Imprimit ille die quantum vix scribitur anno,
  Ingenio baud noceas, omnia vincit homo.

The watchful goose once sav'd the Roman walls,
And brought destruction on the hostile Gauls.
Our Gaul revenges by his wondrous skill,
This ancient grudge upon the goose’s quill.
For what the pen requires a year to say,
His printing art delivers in a day.

Art. Campanus.

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A popular author says, "I have it from very good hands, that in Italy they have such a lively jealousy against some parts of the scripture, and chiefly against the epistles of St Paul, that not long ago, some Jesuits exalting St Peter as an excellent man in their public sermons and among their favourers in private conversations, censured St Paul as a person of a petulant and hot brain, who in most of his disputes had suffered himself to be carried so immoderately by the sallies of his zeal and the acrimony of his spirit, that no great account was to be made of his assertions; and that the reading of him is very dangerous, sa­, vouring of heresy in divers places, and perhaps it had been better that he had never written. In conformity to which, I have heard Roman Catholics say divers times, that they have already often consulted among themselves, in some manner to censure and reform St Paul’s epistles. But however, it is certain that they esteem St Paul below all the sacred writers; and I know of my own knowledge and hearing, that some of them teach in their pulpits, that that holy

apostle had no other assurance of his preaching, than the conference he made of it with St Peter, and that he durst not publish his epistles before St Peter had approved them.” These are very aukward persons; for if the epistles of St. Paul were approved by St Peter, they have all the authenticity that can be desired.—Art. Adamites.

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It is said that Charles V did not forget to discipline himself. Strada affirms it positively: “Besides which, making a scourge of small cords, he began very severely to punish himself for his past life; which scourge, being had in great reverence by Philip II, and being ordered to be brought to him on his death-bed, and delivered, stained as it was with his father Charles’s blood, to his son Philip III, is said to be kept among the monuments of the Austrian piety.” He is not the only author who says that the scourge which Charles V made use of, and which is stained with his blood, is kept as a kind of relic. What he relates, that king Philip II caused his father’s scourge to be brought to him, and gave it to his son, is confirmed by other historians. You will find it in the Memoirs of Chiverni, and in those of Brantome: I shall only quote the last. “He caused also a disciplining whip to be taken out of a little chest, which was bloody at the ends, and holding it up, he said, ‘ this blood is of my blood, and yet not properly mine, but that of my father, whom God absolve, who made use of this whip.’ ” Scioppius boasts to have handled this whip in the monastery of the Escurial, and rallies Strada for having observed that the same whip is yet stained with Charles’s blood; “for it is a proof,” says be, “that the descendants of that emperor have let his whip hang on a hook, without lashing their shoulders with it; which Scioppius would not have thought amiss.”—Art. Charles V.

There is a local faith, and a temporary faith, which have not yet been mentioned in the division of the genus into its species.—Art. Arius.

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Some ancients have said that a dove brooding on an egg had produced Venus, or Love. Lucius Ampelius pretends it was the egg of a fish; “ovum piscis columbam adsedisse dies plurimos, et exclusisse Deam Benignam.” By the egg, Dr. Burnet understands the chaos, the Holy Ghost, by the dove, and Venus by the earth; but it seems that Venus, which came out of the egg, ought not to be limited to the production of earth only, but of the whole machine of the world. That doctor observes, “that the egg was a very sacred thing in the mysteries of Bacchus, because of its resemblance to that being which engenders and encloses all in itself. Ως μίμημα τοῦ τὰ πάντα γεννῶντος καὶ περιέχούτος ἑν ἑαυτοῦ. He does not forget to observe that Moses’s expression has a relation to the manner of hens in the act of brooding. “Huic doctrinae de Ovo mundano datæque interpretationi tacite favere mihi videtur incubatio Spiritus Sancti in abyssum, de qua Moses in prima telluris  productione, ubi ad ovum manifesto alluditur.”

Art. Arinanius.

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Dante had not the good fortune to please his patron at Verona. The great Can della Scala gave him to understand that he was weary of him, and told him one day, “it is a wonderful thing that such a one, who is a fool, should please us all, and make himself beloved by every body, which you, that are accounted a wise man, cannot do.” “This is not to be wondered at,” answered Dante, “you would not admire such a thing, if you knew how much the conformity of characters is the source of friendship.” Every body sees that this answer was too shocking not to put the prince of Verona quite out of conceit with our poet.—Art. Dante.

Let a writer defame all the world, the dead, the living, sovereigns, subjects, his brethren in religion, the adversaries of his party; let him exercise this trade several years successively, and become more malicious and satirical as he grows old; I confess that the readers perceive it, and blame him for it; but if, at last, this man happen to be very ill treated by those whom he has provoked, you will hear a hundred times more complaints against them than against him. His very enemies think it strange that he was not treated with more moderation. They have read, with pleasure, what was published to his disadvantage, and yet they will not hesitate to say that he ought to have been spared. This is an effect of the immoderate inclination men have for censuring others: some people are pleased to approve of nothing.—-Art. Baudouin.

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I have discoursed in another place of the singular efficacy of marriage. It cannot be sufficiently admired, for in short it changes the nature of the three distinctions of time; the past is no less affected by its influences than the present and the future. “Do you not admire the force of custom, and what authority it has in the world? With three words that a man pronounces, ‘ego conjungo vos,’ he makes a young man and a maid go to bed together, in sight, and with the consent of all the world; and this is called a sacra-  ment administered by a consecrated person. The same action, without these words, is an enormous crime, which dishonours a poor woman; and he who manages the matter is called, forgive the expression, a pimp. In the first case, the father and mother rejoice, dance, and lead their daughter themselves to the bed. In the second, they are all in distraction, get her shaved, and thrust her into a convent. It must be confessed that the laws are very pretty things.”—Art. Ariosto.

If the Grecian generals, who were ten years at the siege of Troy, found at their return that their wives had not been able to live without gallants, it was partly their own fault; why did they leave them alone for so many years? They should have given them, at their departure, the same advice that was given to a prelate by his mistress. “The bishop of going ----- one day to take his leave of the countess of -----, whom he loved, expressed his grief that he must be absent from her, though but for so little a while; after abundance of tender things said on both sides, the bishop rose up to go, and the countess accompanying him to the door, told him, ‘ well sir, make your journey as short as you can, and remember that a mistress is a benefice which obliges to residence?'”

Art. Egialea.

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Albertus Magnus was a very little man; some write that, kissing his holiness’s feet, when he was come to Rome, the pope commanded him to rise, thinking him yet to be on his knees, although he was standing. The same thing is related of Jean André: and remember the logician’s distinction between “quantitas molis,” and “quantitas virtutis.” The little Albertus Magnus puts me in mind of it.

Art. Albertus.

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It is surprising that men of such great genius as Aristotle and Averroës should invent so many chimeras concerning their intellectual faculty, and yet I will venture to say that the superiority of their parts was the very cause of it. It was by their great penetration that they discovered such difficulties as obliged them to leave the common road, and despise many other ways, where they did not meet with what they sought. The most certain knowledge they had of the nature of the soul was, that it is capable of thinking successively of a thousand things; but how it reduced

this capacity into action, they could not comprehend: the operation of objects, their species, their images in the brain, as much refined as you please, nothing of all this seems sufficient to give the soul an actual intelligence. See with what force father Mallebranche confutes all that has been said of the manner of our knowing things. He could find no other expedient than to assert that we see them in God, and that the ideas are not produced in our souls. Some ancient philosophers have said, that God is the general intelligence of all spirits; that is to say, that he diffuses knowledge on them, as the sun does light on bodies. Read these words of the Jesuits of Coimbra: Conimbric. in lib. 5, de Animâ, cap. 5. ²⁸ “the first was the opinion of Alexander, in his second book ‘ de Animas,’ cap. 20, 21, who held the acting intellect to be the universal intellect, the creator of all things, God; which is also esteemed to be the doctrine of Plato, in bis sixth book, ‘ de Republicâ,’ where the acting intellect, irradiating our minds, is compared to the sun, as St Thomas relates from Themistius in this book, part. i, quæst. 79, art. 4. Priscianus Lydus has fallen into the same error, in asserting that the acting intellect is not part of the soul, but the supreme and divine mind itself, or idea of good.” When a subject is very obscure, it is no wonder that the greatest philosophers speak of it a little out of the way, and on suppositions not easily to be apprehended.

Art. Averroes.

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It is pretended that Charles V. esteemed the Spanish language most. Let us cite father Bouhours.“If Charles V. were to return into the world, he would not be pleased that you should prefer the French language to the Castilian; for he used to say that, ‘ if he were to speak to ladies, he would speak Italian; that if he were to speak to men, he would speak French; that if he

were to speak to his horse, he would speak High Dutch, but that if he were to speak to God, he would speak in Spanish.’ ‘ He ought to have said, without any more ado,’ replied Eugenius, ‘ that the Castilian was the natural language of God, as a learned cavalier of that country said one day; who maintained in a good company, that in the terrestrial paradise, the serpent spoke English, the woman Italian, the man French, but that God spoke Spanish.’ ” This differs much from what was said by a Spaniard to a German: “The Germans,” said he, “do not speak, but thunder; and I believe that God made use of their language, when he thundered the sentence of condemnation on Adam.” He was answered, “that the serpent made use of the affectations of the Castilian language to deceive Eve.” Here is another division which does not altogether agree with Charles V, and which pleases a Spanish doctor very much. “The German language,’’says he, “is for soldiers, the French for women, the Italian for princes, and the Spanish for God.” There is yet another division, according to which the Spanish language is fit to command, the Italian to persuade, and the French to excuse one’s self. “Whence it comes,” said a Spaniard, “that God made use of the Castilian to forbid the first man to eat of a certain fruit; that the serpent made use of the Italian to deceive Eve, and that Adam spoke French to justify his fault.”

Art. Charles V.

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Baldus said that our understanding alters, and that he therefore argues one day after one manner, and another day after another. I believe he reserved to himself, “in petto,” the privilege which he attributed to legislators. The bishop of Pavia asked one day, “why the laws were so changeable?” Baldus answered him, “that the same things become either lawful or unlawful, according to the times. In time of war, some things are permitted, which are forbidden

in time of peace; therefore justice enjoins all things which become proper to the times; such a conduct is proportioned to the present circumstances, therefore it is just: those who make laws imitate physicians, who permit, order, and forbid the same things, according to times and seasons.” This was Baldus’s answer, and this is implicitly or explicitly the principle on which authors argue who confute themselves, when they are to dispute against two sorts of enemies. This   proposition is true and good this day, while I dispute against Pelagius; in a year’s time it shall not be so, if I am to dispute against Calvin. See what has been said above, concerning the contradictions of advocates, and the apology Cicero makes for them. I remember having read that certain controvertists, not being able to deny but that the church commands certain things, which do not seem agreeable either to scripture or to the primitive church, have maintained, that they were nevertheless just and true, because the holy spirit who guides the church inspires her, in every age, with such interpretations as are most proper for the good of souls. “That the scriptures are adapted to the times, and to be variously understood, so that they shall be explained at one time according to the universal usage then prevailing; if this usage come to alter, so must the interpretation. It is no wonder if the practice of the church interpret the scripture at one time in one way, at another time in another; for the understanding goes along with the practice.” I love this plain dealing.—Art. Baldus.

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Let us consider that the impression of some objects upon our brain are independent upon our soul. It is not because we would have it so, that certain objects please us; but because they move, in a certain manner, the fibres of our brain, and open some valves that were shut. This alteration produces others,

almost ad infinitum, in our machine; and hence spring desires, and prelibations of pleasure, and a hundred other innovations which destroy continence. It is something, I know not what, which lies in some insensible particles, whose efficacy we feel without being acquainted with the manner of their acting. There is many a man, who for twenty years has conversed with an infinite number of women without having a mind to marry; the same man will meet by chance, either in a boat, at a feast, or visit, a woman with whose beauty he shall be so smitten, that he will be ready to marry her instantly. She is, perhaps, neither so young nor so handsome as those that could not please him; and on the other hand, she has conversed with men more susceptible of love than he, without wounding their hearts. The proportion of the object to the faculty was wanting; which being found in this particular case, a match is soon concluded. There is nothing more rash than the vow of celibacy. The gift of continence is not a thing on which a man may depend. He has, you will say, been proof against a thousand most lovely objects for a great many years; well, does it follow that he will be so eternally? Can you answer that at last you will not see some other object, better proportioned to the fibres of your brain? Love comes as a thief in the night, when you least expect him. Keep therefore your liberty always; possess your gift as not possessing it; think that you may lose it, and that you will lose it, perhaps, when you least think of it.

Art. Farel.

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It has been given out, that an assembly of their rabbins were very nearly excluding the book of Ezekiel out of the canon of the scriptures. The Talmud contains a Treatise wherein we read that the rabbins, considering that in the prophecies of Ezekiel, there are some passages which seem contrary to the doctrine of

Moses, took into deliberation whether it would not be proper to reject the work of that prophet. The votes having been taken, they were going to pronounce the sentence of degradation, when one Ananias represented that he would undertake to reconcile the differences between Ezekiel and Moses: and as he proposed upon the spot a method to do it, which was to their satisfaction, they left Ezekiel among the canonical books.

Art. Ezekiel.

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The monk of St Dennis, who composed a history of Charles VI, praises Philip the Hardy on several accounts, as having been very faithful to his wife, having educated his nephew the king well, having taken care to have excellent music for divine service, having been so clear-sighted in politics, “that nothing happened which he had not foreseen long beforehand,” having been very eloquent; but, adds he, “one thing tarnished the glory of a name which he had made so recommendable; to wit, that he did not care for paying his debts, and that his stewards and controllers never did his creditors justice, no, not for what concerned the ordinary expenses of his household, the payment whereof could not be refused without a crime. Neither was his personal estate, though of an inestimable value, sufficient to discharge the debts, and this made his widow do what the wretchedest women do not do without regret, and without curses, that is, make use of the privilege of renunciation to free herself from his debts.” She observed the usual ceremonies in that renunciation, for she “untied her girdle, and laid it with her keys and purse upon her husband's coffin.” Pontus Heuterus informs us, that that “action stops all interest, and takes away all right from the creditors on the immoveables, and obliges them to compound.” Properly speaking it is a bankruptcy. The agreement made with the

creditors was partly executed by the widow, and partly by his children.—Art. Burgundy.

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Benserade could not explain the difference between the Hamadryads and the Dryads. The thing is thus, and we shall see that he came off with a piece of wit. “Being one day at the Opera, in the box of the duke of Orleans, the king’s brother, the duchess of Orleans asked him what difference there was between the Hamadryads and the Dryads? He found himself much perplexed; but, not thinking it fit to be silent, and perceiving that an archbishop and a bishop waited in the passage for the duchess’s going out, being unwilling to show their crosiers in the box, he replied,  ‘ there was as much difference as between bishops and archbishops.’ This immediately raised a laugh, and the duchess repeating it the next day at her toilet, some one, looking upon a clergyman his friend, said, pointing to him, ‘ Here is one your highness may make a Dryad and Hamadryad of, whenever you please to go about it seriously.’ ” Benserade’s perplexity in this case does not seem to me a true sign of ignorance; for I am sure that the question of the duchess of Orleans would have put several celebrated Regent doctors to a stand. These things are better known when we first leave college, than after we have grown old in more important studies.—Art. Benserade.

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It has been said that there is nothing so absurd, but it has been maintained by some philosophers. Huet inserted, in the relation of his journey to Stockholm, the ridiculous manner of electing the burgomaster of a certain place called Hardenburg. He says that, “on the day of the election, the burghers place themselves round a table, and lean their chins, furnished with a long beard upon it; after which a louse

is fairly put in the middle of the table, and he into whose beard the louse gets, is chosen burgomaster.”

Art. Blondel.

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The verses of Euripides did a signal service to the Athenian soldiers in Sicily. The Athenian army, commanded by Nicias, suffered all the miseries in Sicily that ill fortune can inflict. The conquerors pushed the advantages they had gained with the utmost cruelty; but how inhumanly soever they treated the Athenian soldiers, they were exceedingly kind to those who could repeat some of the verses of Euripides to them. Many who, after escaping from the battle, wandered from place to place, without knowing what to do, found a resource by singing the verses of that poet. They found means to subsist by it, the people furnishing them with provisions as a reward for their songs. Plut. in Nicia, sub finem, pag. 542, C. ²⁹ “It is said that those who returned in safety, in a grateful manner made their acknowledgments to Euripides, declaring that they had been set at liberty for teaching their conquerors what verses of that poet they remembered; and that others, who wandered from place to place, were relieved with meat and drink in return for singing his verses.” No doubt it was a great pleasure to Euripides to see many of these unfortunate men come to him, gratefully acknowledging that his verses had saved their life and liberty. The Sicilians gave another remarkable proof of their esteem for Euripides. A Caunian vessel, chased by pirates, endeavoured to make some port of Sicily, but could not obtain permission to enter, until it was known there were some persons on board that could rehearse verses of Euripides. It must not be forgotten that they were asked if they knew any; this single question implies more than I can express. Let us quote a passage of M. le Fevre:

“Euripides must be sensibly affected with the glory of seeing, every day, some of those unhappy wretches coming to him, and returning him thanks as their deliverer, telling him that his verses had changed their ill fortune, and had been of more service to them    than if they had had a passport signed by the five ephori, and the two kings of Lacedemon. Euripides was a great and glorious poet; but what shall we say of the Sicilians of that time? were they not generous men? The worst is, such an excellent example as this has had no effect, and at this day, such histories would pass in France and Spain, as the stories of old Greece, which are always called lies.”—Art. Euripides.

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Cyrene was the daughter of Hypsius, king of the Lapithæ, who was the son of Peneus and Creusa. Creusa was the daughter of the earth, and Peneus was son of the Ocean. According to Pindar, Cyrene despised the employments of other maidens, and their household amusements; and rising early, was extremely fond of hunting, and making great destruction among the wild beasts. Apollo, encountering her, as she was fighting singly with a lion, demanded of Chiron, who she was, and whether he might not use force and enjoy her.

-----Ὁσια
Κλυτὰv  χειρά οί προσενεγκεῖν;
Ἦ ῥα καὶ ἐκ λεχέων
Κεῖρεν μελιηδέα ποὶαν

Chiron, beginning with the answer to the last question, represented that lovers ought to make use of the key of the heart; that is, of soft and tender words, to persuade the fair to grant what they request; adding that, among both gods and men, modesty opposes the precipitation with which some fall to downright enjoyment; and explained himself very nicely upon this subject.

------- καὶ ἔν τε θεοῖς
Τοῦτο κὰνθρώποις ὁμῶς
Αἰδέον τ' ἀμφαδὸν ἁ­
δείας τνχεῖν τὸ τρῶτον εὐνᾶς.

“By the way,” continues he, “it is a visible effect of your great civility, that you, who know all things, should do me the honour to enquire of me, concerning this maid’s extraction.” This is Pindar’s sense; I pretend not to give a translation word for word; it is sufficient to represent his thought: now, if this be his meaning, who can see without indignation the liberty which a French author takes, in making him express himself thus? “‘ Is it lawful to see her? may I approach her? shall I not be thought rash, if I take her fair hand, and gather one of those vermillion roses which I see painted on her lips?’ But the centaur, smiling, answered him thus: ‘ A chaste love, Apollo, ought always to be concealed; and the fair sex, among the gods as well as among mortals, do not grant their favours in the eyes of the world. This is, without doubt, the reason which makes you speak with so much reserve: a lover less chaste than you, would not have had so much respect; and it is to your own good manners rather than to my instruction, that you owe this modesty.’ ” This translation is repugnant to the original, and inconsistent with itself; for, should we suppose that Apollo did not express himself grossly, but modestly and chastely, Chiron’s answer is ridiculous and contradictory: the event was, that Apollo enjoyed Cyrene without delay, and transported her into Africa.

Ωκεῖα δ' ἐπειγομένων ῆδη Θεῶν
πρᾶξις, ὁδοί τε βραχεῖαι.
κεῖνο κεῖν' ἆμαρ διαίτα-
σεν. θαλαμω δὲ μίγεν.
ἐν πολυχρύσῳ Λιβύας.

Chiron would have had him say tender things to her, and proceed in a way of honourable love; but, as Pindar observes, “the gods of the poets could not away with delays; they despatched matters in a trice; they went the shortest way to work; they boarded briskly; and enjoyed, either by fair or by foul means;. they took the romance by the tail, and said, with Boreas in love:

Apta mibi vis est.
By force and violence I chiefly live.

Croxall.

Art. AristÆus.

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The dispute between Denys and Brissot raised a kind of civil war among the Portuguese physicians. The business was brought before the tribunal of the university of Salamanca, where it was thoroughly discussed by the faculty of physic; but whilst they were examining the reasons pro and con, the partisans of Denys had recourse to an expedient which seldom fails those that are the strongest; they oppressed the others by the authority of the secular power, and obtained a decree, forbidding physicians to bleed in the same side that the pleurisy should be in. At last, the university of Salamanca gave their judgment, importing that the opinion ascribed to Brissot was the true doctrine of Hippocrates and Galen. The followers of Denys appealed to Caesar about the year 1529. They thought themselves superior, both in authority and number, so that the matter was brought before Charles V. They were not contented to call the doctrine of their adversaries false, but they said, moreover, that it was impious and mortal, and as pernicious to the body as Luther’s schism to the soul. They did not only blacken their adversaries’ reputation by private arts, but they did also openly accuse

them of ignorance and rashness, of tampering with religion, and of being downright Lutherans in physic. It fell out unluckily for them that Charles III, duke of Savoy, happened to die of a pleurisy, having been bled according to the practice which Brissot had opposed. Had it not been for this, the emperor as it is thought, would have granted every thing that Brissot’s antagonists desired of him: but though that accident should have made the good cause triumph, no other good resulted from it, but that the thing remained undecided.—Art. Brissot.

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Vopiscus has made a distinction concerning Aurelian, which few persons are capable of making: the faults of Aurelian were serviceable, the state stood in need of them; but, in Vopiscus’s opinion, it does not follow that he was a good emperor. This is the language of a man who is careful not to confound things. A great number of persons are ignorant of this distinction; they look on that as a truly and absolutely good and just reign, which has prevented or removed some great evil; and if once they fancy that a government is unjust, they look on it as truly and absolutely bad, without regarding the necessary advantages the public receives from it.—Art. Aurelian.

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The Roman Catholics act inconsistently who insult Calvin with the utmost fury for literally following St Paul's doctrine of predestination, whilst they would explain it in a milder sense, that human reason may be satisfied with it. They had not the same regard for reason in the explication of the passages relating to the Trinity, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Balzac's strokes against the Protestant divines would do well against the Papists: “the ministers,” says he, “ought to be laughed at as fools, after the advances they have made, and the reserves they would keep to themselves. When they have granted us the greater,

can they refuse us the less? Having given us the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, they have reserved themselves nothing afterwards. By granting these two great strange and astonishing truths, they have given up the liberty of their mind; which liberty must either lie lost, or be preserved full and entire. The same authority which assures them of the certainty of the apostle's creed, assures them of the validity of all the other parts of religion; and they have no better grounds for contesting then latter than the former. The authority being infallible, it is universally infallible; it is equally infallible. The Christian being a captive to faith, and not a judge of doctrines, ought to obey the voice which speaks, without deliberating about the words, because the words would not persuade him if the voice had not already done it. A man has no longer a right to his first freedom, after he has taken upon him the yoke of the commanding and victorious God. It is too late to make use of our reason after we have submitted it to the obedience of faith. How ridiculous, I pray, would it be, one while to quit reason, and another to resume it; to make choice of some pleasing parts of Christianity, and to reject the displeasing ones; to be half infidel and half believer! This would be making terms with Jesus Christ, and entering upon articles with the church. It would be doing something worse, passing from complaisance to giving the lie, admitting part of what she proposes to our belief, and maintaining the rest to be false.” Calvin might thus have defended himself against those who disliked his hypothesis of predestination; he might have told them, “you are preposterously squeamish, after having digested the difficulties of one God in three persons, and those of transubstantiation. You will not hearken to philosophical arguments on that head; you talk of nothing but the omnipotent power of God; you complain of our denying it, when we deny the preservation of accidents without a subject, and the presence of a body in different places: why then do ye attack the mystery of predestination by human arguments? Why do not ye believe that the power of God extends even, to the reconciling the liberty of creatures with thenecessity of his decrees, and his justice with the punishment of a sin necessarily committed?

Art. Dissertation concerning the Manichees.

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Koonhert was continually saying, “that Luther, Calvin, and Mennon had strongly attacked abundance of Romish errors, but that they had very ill succeeded against the dreadful and impious doctrine of forcings conscience; and that, instead of opposing in the best manner, they had rather strengthened it; every one having put it in practice, wherever they could become masters, and created a new papacy, by the erection of a schismatical church, which condemned all others. They have,” said he, “encouraged the papists by this means to continue their method, and have not only gained nothing against their persecuting maxims, but have also introduced confusions and schisms, by taking away the liberty of prophecying.” Prophecying here means spontaneous preaching in public assemblies. Ed. ³⁰ As for himself, he maintained, “that nobody ought to be hated; and that all pious people, who by faith in Jesus Christ endeavoured to imitate him, are good Christians, and that the magistrates ought to account all peaceable people good subjects.” He was so full of this hypothesis that, to the prejudice of his tranquillity and temporal interests, he made use of all his courage, parts, and learning to maintain it.

Art. Koonhert.

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There is a great difference between the poets, who publish obscenities in the way of Catullus and Ovid, and those who are forced to use obscene words, in.

explaining the effects of nature. Lucretius must be reckoned in this last class; and consequently his expressions cannot be brought as a proof against his morals. The case is quite different as to Catullus and such as he, who publish obscenities only to give the history of their amours, or to excite people to the most filthy debaucheries. In a word, Lucretius is a poet who is a natural philosopher, and the others are the authors of verses on gallantry; it is lawful for him to make use of the physicians’ style, but obscenity is intolerable in love verses.—Art. Lucretius..

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The marriage of Mary of Burgundy with Maximilian of Austria, was the origin of a war which has lasted above two hundred years, and which in all probability will last much longer. It has been sometimes interrupted by the low condition of the combatants, only to return like intermitting fevers, when the dissipated humours have had time to recruit; hence we may derive those rivers of blood, those repeated burnings, ravagings, and desolations. There is reason to wonder how a country of so little extent, had been able to furnish for two ages» an. ample theatre of war to so many nations. France and the house of Austria, the principal parties who have disputed this piece of ground, have engaged most of the Christian princes in their quarrel; for whenever the balance of power has been on the side of the latter, the former, has been seconded in its attacks; and when the former has been but too likely to conquer, the other has been vigorously assisted. The eastern nations who know not the nature of the country, nor the concurrence of obstacles, laugh that so many battles gained and so many towns taken, should not decide this quarrel. The conquest of three or four provinces is with them the business of a very few years; their historians spend but three er four pages in relating it. What would they say, should they know that two camels could not carry all

the histories that have been written upon the wars or the low countries? The historians of the troubles which occasioned the erection of the republic of the United Provinces are so numerous, that when Varillas came to Paris, nobody but Naudé was capable of giving a catalogue of them; and yet these are but a very small part of the wars of the Netherlands since Charles VIII. It is said that a Turkish emperor desiring to see in a map, the little territory that maintained so long a war against so potent a monarch, said, that if it were his business, he would send a good number of pioneers, and make them shovel that little point of land into the sea. These people doubtless, pity both those who have lost something, and those who have not taken all in so long a series of wars. " The poor Flemings,” as Comines very well said, are “always the sufferers; as long as there is an inch of ground to be gained, they will always be the suffering party; this will be a constant and infallible ferment, of new wars.”—Art. Louis XI.

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Is it not certain that a shoemaker, a miller, a gardener, are infinitely more necessary to the society than the ablest painters or statuaries? than a Michael Angelo, or a cavalier Bernini? Is it not true that the meanest bricklayer is more necessary in a town than the most excellent chronologer or astronomer? than a Joseph Scaliger or a Copernicus? and yet, the works of these great men, which the world might well enough dispense with, are infinitely more valued than the absolutely necessary productions of these trades. “Plus interfuit Reipub. Castellum capi Ligurum quam bene defendi causam M. Curii. Credo, sed Atheniensium quoque plus interfuit firma tecta in domiciliis habere, quam Minervae signum ex ebore pulcherrimum: tamen ego me Phidiam esse mallem quam vel optimum fabrum lignarium; quare non quantum quisque prosit, sed quanti quisque sit ponderandum est: praesertim

cum pauci pingere egregiè possint aut fingere, operarii autem aut bajuli deesse non possint. Cicero in Brut. ³¹—It was more beneficial to the commonwealth that the fort of the Ligurians should be taken, than that the cause of M. Curius should be well defended. I believe it, but it was likewise more beneficial to the Athenians to have well built houses, than to have the beautiful ivory statue of Minerva; but I would rather be Phidias than the best carpenter in the world; so that we are to consider, not how beneficial every man is, but what real merit he has: especially since few men are excellent painters or statuaries, whereas, there are always workmen and porters in abundance.” So true it is, that there are things whose worth and value is determined only with respect to an honest diversion, or a mere ornament of the mind.

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Remarks on Project of Historical and Critical Dictionary.

James Hugues, a divine and canon, born at Lisle in Flanders, printed a book at Rome in 1655, of a most singular kind, considering the chimeras with which it is filled. He dedicated it to Pope Alexander VII, and in his Epistle Dedicatory are several ridiculous applications. Here follows the title of it. “Vera Historia Romana, seu Origo Latii vel Italiæ ac Romanæ Urbis è tenebris longæ vetustatis in lucem producta. Liber primus qui primordia Europæ ac Latii primævi Annales demonstrat atque urbis conditæ. Romæ, typis Francisci Monetæ, MDCLV. —The true Roman History, or the Origin of Latium or Italy, and of the city of Rome, brought to light out of the darkness of remote antiquity. Book the first, which contains an account of the first peopling of Europe, and the annals of antient Latium, and of the building of Rome.” It contains 284 pages in

quarto. A passage which I am going to cite from the Memoirs of Trevoux will give some idea of this extravagant production. According to James-Hugues, “there never existed such persons as Janus, Æneas, or Romulus. All that has been said of them is taken from the predictions of, I do not know what Sybil, who, in the prophecies which she delivered concerning St Peter, had given this saint the names of these heroes; and, according to the prophetic style, had made use of the past time instead of the future. The. book of the Origin of Rome, composed by this author, is full of visions as extraordinary as this is.”

Art. Hugues.

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Apollodorus, a famous architect in the days of Trajan and Adrian, had the direction of the stone bridge, which Trajan caused to be built over the Danube, in the year 104, and which passed for the most magnificent of all the sumptuous buildings of that emperor. Adrian, who took a pride in understanding all arts and sciences to perfection, so far as to entertain a jealousy and ill will for all those who had acquired an eminent reputation in their professions, had particular reasons to hate Apollodorus, for as Trajan discoursed one day with this great architect about some buildings which he designed to erect in Rome, Adrian would needs give his opinion, and did it like one who understood nothing of the matter. Apollodorus said rashly to him, “Go, sir, and paint citruls; you are a great stranger to the matter we are discoursing of.” Adrian, in those days, used to spend his time in painting citruls or gourds, and even boasted of it. This insult of Apollodorus cost him dear, for Adrian never forgot it, and when he came to be emperor, did not forget to revenge himself. He never would employ Apollodorus, but first banished him, and afterwards got him accused of several crimes, and under that pretence put him to death.

He was ashamed to own the true cause of this severity. Apollodorus had to his old offence added a new provocation, which touched the emperor to the quick: he had criticised slily on a presumptuous structure which Adrian had caused to be built. The prince, to shew Apollodorus that he could do without him, sent him a plan of the temple of Venus, and asked his opinion of it; but not before the building was finished. Apollodorus wrote to him very frankly what he thought of that structure, and found very material faults in it, which the emperor could neither deny nor mend. He made it appear, by good reasons, that it was neither large, nor lofty enough; and that the statues placed in it were not justly proportioned to the size of the temple; “For the goddesses,” said he, “if they have a mind to rise, and go out of it, cannot accomplish this desire.” I have some where read that the critics found the same fault with the olympian Jupiter of Phidias; but others have built a pious reflection on it.' Let us hear Bardin: “They say that Phidias, being to make a statue of Jupiter Olympius, chose to carve him in a sitting posture, and so disproportionate to the size of the temple, that, if he were to stand up, the roof would be too low for him. Thus we may say, that God enters our souls, which are his temples; but that he cannot be ♦«contained in them at his full extent.”

Art. Apollonius.

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I easily believe that my mythological observations have appeared pretty tedious: some of my acquaintance wrote me the same thing with regard to the chronological discussions, and in general to all that may be called erudition. I had foreseen this, and therefore, on a thousand occasions, I have considered those things as the cards thrown out of a hand at piquet. I have discarded them, and taken in other-cards,  weaker indeed, but more able to win the game; for

we live in an age where they read rather for amusement than in order to grow learned. If I had written my Dictionary according to the taste of abbot Renaudot, nobody would have printed it, and had anybody run the hazard of putting it to the press, he would not have sold a hundred copies. If I had struck out all the literature, the first edition would have been sold off in three months. If he imagine that I took all the things I used in it for matters of importance, he wrongs me. I have taken them for what they are, and employed them only to suit the malady of the times. Thus we must do when we cannot cure it. If I had written in Latin, I should have taken another method, and had the taste of the former age prevailed, I should have given a place in my book to nothing but literature. But the times are altered. Good things alone do not take, but disgust. We must mingle them with others, if we would have the reader take the patience to peruse them. “Veluti pueris absinthia tetra medentes, cum dare conantur prius oras pocula circum, &c.”

Dissertation on Project of a Critical and Historical Dictionary.

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A french civilian has maintained, “that they are in a great error who praise and adore the goodness of a gentle, gracious, courteous, and simple prince; for such simplicity, without prudence, is most dangerous and pernicious in a king, and much more to be feared than the cruelty of a severe, morose, rough, covetous, and inaccessible prince.” And methinks our forefathers have not used this proverb without cause; “An ill man makes a good king,” which may seem strange to delicate ears, and which are not accustomed to weigh the reasons on both sides. By the indulgence and foolish simplicity of too good natured a prince, it comes to pass that flatterers and parasites, and the worst of men carry off all offices, employments,

benefices, and grants, draining the treasures of a kingdom, by which means the poor people are gnawed to the very bones, and cruelly enslaved by the great, so that for one tyrant, there are ten thousand.” Art. Henry II.

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Lippoman, the first apostolic nuncio that was seen in Poland, put to death some Jews to terrify the Heretics. He suborned and bribed certain accusers, who made oath, that a woman had sold a host to some Jews, and that these miscreants had, with the prickings of needles, drawn a vial of blood from it, to heal the wound of circumcision. The king’s order was surreptitiously obtained for burning them, and they insisted on their innocence at the stake. The king, being informed how the matter was carried, conceived a great indignation against Lippoman; nevertheless, a narrative of the whole affair was drawn up in the king’s name, and sent to Rome to swell the catalogue of miracles in the archives.—Art. Lippoman.

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There is no inconvenience in saying that God loves order and good, by a necessary and indispensible law; for, on the contrary, it would be an imperfection to be able to violate this law: but it is doubtless an imperfection to be subject to an order which retards or weakens our functions; and therefore, they who pretended the stars were gods, were obliged to say, if they argued consistently, that the astronomers had discovered the weakness of the divine nature, and its dependance on a very burdensome law, which subjected it to a sort of death, fainting, or slavery. To this it may be objected, that the sun is no less luminous in itself at the time of an eclipse, than before or after; but may not I answer that, a courier who is stopped, loses nothing of his vigour and health, it is nevertheless a proof of his submission to a burdensome law; it is, in a word, a sign of weakness to see that he cannot

continue his journey. Apply this to the sun, and you will find that his eclipses are a sign of imperfection; they hinder him from enlightening the earth; he is a prince, whose couriers are stopped, and whose functions are interrupted. If Pliny had purposed to reason, he had not drawn the consequence which he has drawn from that phenomenon; he would not have said that this ought to comfort men on account of their mortality, he would have said that this proves that the stars are not of a divine nature.—Art. Hipparchus.

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It has been said that the doctrine of grace is a sea, that has neither shore nor bottom. Perhaps it had been better to compare it to the Faro of Messina, in which there is always danger of running upon a rock by endeavouring to avoid another: “incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim.” The whole controversy comes at last to this: did Adam sin freely? If you answer yes, then it will be replied that his fall was not foreseen; if you say no, then it will be replied he was not culpable. You may write a hundred volumes upon either of these consequences, and at last you must be forced to own either, that the infallible foresight of a contingent event is an inconceivable mystery; or, that the way how a creature sins, though it acts in a necessary manner, is wholly incomprehensible. I desire no more; for to what purpose is it to write so many books, since you must own one of these two incomprehensible mysteries?

Art. Jansenius.

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Diagoras being on board a ship in a terrible storm, in the height of it they told him they well deserved what they suffered for taking such an impious wretch as he was, on board. “He replied, “Behold the great number of vessels that are in the same tempest with ours; do you think that I am also in every one of those ships. Idemque cum ei naviganti vectores

adversa tempestate timidi et perterriti dicerent, non injuria sibi illud accidere qui illum in eandem navem recepissent, ostendit eis in eodem cursu multas alias laborantes, quæsivitque num etiam in iis navibus Diagoram vehi crederent.” This should teach the faithful and the orthodox not to urge all sorts of unbelievers with the reasons which are drawn from the common course of providence.—Art. Diagoras.

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The being superior to another in virtue, is not always the means of being so in reputation. This thought is borrowed from Cornelius Nepos, who thus expresses himself in relation to Aristides and Themistocles: “In his cognitum est, quanto antistaret eloquentia innocentiæ; quamquam enim adeo excellebat Aristides abstinentia, ut unus post hominum memoriam, quod quidem nos audierimus, cognomine justus, sit appellatus, tamen a Themistocle collabefactus testula illa exilio decem annorum multatus est —In them Was seen the advantage of eloquence above innocence; for though Aristides was so remarkably virtuous as alone (at least as far as I can remember) to have obtained the sirname of just, yet through the influence, and by the vote of Themistocles, he suffered a ten years’ banishment.” Be as honest as you please; if you are not master of a noisy, blustering eloquence, you may depend upon being foiled, though you come in competition with some of the otherwise meanest persons in society.

Art. Aristides.

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The writings of St Paul teach us, that this great apostle proposing to himself the difficulties concerning predestination, could get out of them no otherwise than by asserting the absolute power of God over his creatures, with an exclamation on the incomprehensibility of his ways. Could he more clearly signify than by such a solution, that the doctrine

of the decrees of God concerning the destiny of the elect and reprobate, is inexplicable? Is not this telling us in plain terms that predestination is one of the mysteries which must overwhelm human reason, and most unavoidably require it to humble itself under the authority of God, and sacrifice itself to the scripture? The objections it suggests against the mysteries of the trinity and incarnation, are for the most part sensible only to those who have some tincture of logic and metaphysics, and belonging to the speculative sciences, they have less force upon the generality of men; but those it suggests against Adam’s sin and original sin, and the eternal damnation of an infinite number of people who cannot be saved without an efficacious grace which God grants only to his elect, are founded upon principles of morality, which are known to every body, and which constantly serve for a rule both to the learned and ignorant, to judge whether an action be unjust or not. These principles are the most evident, and work upon the mind and heart; so that all the faculties of man revolt, when we must impute to God a conduct which is not conformable to this rule; nay, the solution which is drawn from God’s infinity, and is employed as a powerful motive to captivate the understanding, is not exempt from a new difficulty; for if that infinite distance which raises God above all things, ought to persuade us that he is not subject to the laws of human virtues, we cannot be certain that his justice engages him to punish evil; and we could not confute those who should maintain that he is the author of sin and yet punishes it very justly, and in all this does nothing but what is consistent with the infinite perfections of a supreme being, because those perfections are not to be adjusted to our ideas of virtue. It is plain therefore, that the doctrine concerning Adam’s sin with its dependencies, is of all the mysteries unconceivable to reason and inexplicable by its maxims. that which most necessarily obliges us to submit to revealed truth, in opposition to philosophical truth.

Dissertation concerning the Manichees.

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One of the aphorisms of ecclesiastical policy is, always to find some mark of God’s wrath in the death of heretics. Though it be never so true that the same kind of death has been common to them and some orthodox, yet it signifies nothing; it must nevertheless be said that God has manifested a most particular judgment in the catastrophe of their lives. The reflections that are built on this foundation, fortify the persuasion of the orthodox, and give them a greater aversion to the heresy: this is well worth the trouble that is taken in it. Another aphorism, or state policy, is to brand a heretic’s corpse with some infamy. These aphorisms before mentioned, and some others which might be added to them, are of so great use, that we cannot but praise the prudence of those who employ them. They are means so proper to cherish the faith of the people, and prevent them from falling off from the body, that the best managed arguments, and subtilest books of controversy, have not so much virtue. They must suit the taste and capacity of the vulgar; that is to say, have recourse to those mechanical impressions which excite the passions. If all men were philosophers, they would only use good arguments; but in the state societies are in, something else besides reason is necessary to maintain them, and to preserve their pre-eminence.

Art. Lubienietzki.

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The courtiers, parasites, and favourites of princes, or those who have the greatest share in the government, labour commonly with an incredible diligence to procure to themselves, or their relations, the most profitable and honourable employments. One would say that they look upon themselves as

the heirs of mankind; there is no place vacant, but they’beg it for themselves, or for some of their crea­     tures. Some there are who attribute this only to an insatiable avarice, and an unbounded ambition; but it is certain that if, in the beginning, such are the only motives of this conduct, prudence obliges them to continue it after; for the enviers and enemies of a prime minister daily increase in proportion to his authority; he has therefore new and hourly occasions to make himself supports and ramparts; for which reason he incessantly turns out of place persons who are suspected, and advances such as devote themselves to his fortune.—Art. Luynes.

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The most usual method of the controvertists is what they call “reductio ad absurdum,” reducing their adversaries to an absurdity. They chiefly endea-  vour to make it appear that the necessary consequence of the opinion they refute is, that the conduct of God would be execrable, and they make no scruple of speaking very ill of the God of their adversaries, that is, of God considered such as he would be, in case the opinion in question were to be received. They boldly employ the most shocking comparisons; the Roman catholics maintain, that Calvin introduced “a God who is deceitful, cruel, and inhuman, a God void of justice, reason, and goodness;” less innocent, and ' less a God than the God of Epicurus; “a God who hath two wills; one public, by which he declares that he is willing to save all mankind, and the other secret, by which he drives into impiety all those whom he loves not, in order to find a pretext for punishing them; an inhuman master, who commands his servants to do things impossible, and inflicts on them an eternal punishment because they did not perform them, as the tyrant Caligula did:” in fine, a God who, like Caligula, commands “his laws to be written in so small a character, that no body can read them.”

The Arminian, Bertius, disputing with Piscator, charged him with making God hold such a conduct towards man, as was perfectly like that which Tiberius held towards Sejanus’s daughters. He showed this parallel in two columns, in one of which be set down what that emperor did, in order that Sejanus’s daughters might not be strangled against the laws; he set down in the other what Piscator makes God do, in order that the reprobate may not be punished against the usual forms. A reformed divine makes use of a like battery against the Socinians; he maintains against them that their God “is the greatest of all the monsters that ever entered the imagination;” that Plato and Zeno would have disliked him: that he is a very ignorant and powerless God, full of imperfections, a phantom of a God, defeated every moment by unforeseen events; a strange God, little better than the God of Epicurus, and one who lives from hand to mouth. Explanation concerning the Manichees.

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Brantome asserts that, “the elder Limeuil, at her first coming to court, happened to make a lampoon (for she spoke and wrote well) upon all the court; which, however, was rather diverting than scandalous; but assure yourself that she (Catherine de Medicis) had her soundly jerked, with two of her companions, who were privy to it; and, but that she had the honour to be related to her, by the house of Touraine allied to that of Boulogne, she had been ignominiously chastised, by the express command of the king, who detested such writings.” In his eulogy of Catherine de Medicis, he observes, “that this young lady died at court.” He tells us, in another place, a remarkable thing of her, “During the sickness,” say he, “of which she died, she never left off discoursing; for she was a great talker, and of a satirical wit, which she exercised very seasonably, and well, and was very handsome withal: when she came to her dying hour,

she called her valet, (for each of the maids of honour had one) whose name was Julian, and who played very well on the violin. ‘ Julian,’ said she, ‘ take the violin, and play till you see me dead (for I am going) the defeat of the Swiss, the best you can; and when you come to the words, all's lost, play it four or five times over, in the dolefulest note you can;’ which he did, and she assisted him with her voice, and when they came to all's lost, she repeated it twice, then turning herself to the other side of the bed, she said to her companions, ‘ all's lost, this instant, in good earnest:' and so expired: here is a merry, pleasant death: I haye this story from two of her companions, who are worthy of credit, and who witnessed the scene.” They who would give a catalogue of persons, who have died jesting, must not forget this young lady.

Art. Limeuil.

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It is ingenuously confessed in the life of Hobbes that, for a man who lived so long, his reading was inconsiderable; Nay, he was used to say, that if he had bestowed as much time on reading as other men of letters, he should have been as ignorant as they. He considered another thing which induced him to make no great account of vast libraries, which is, that most books are extracts and copies of others. “His reading, for a man of his years, was not great; he was well acquainted with a few, and those the best authors: he was a great admirer of Homer, Virgil, Thucydides, and Euclid. He made no great account of large libraries; observing, that men, for the most part, following one another’s steps, like sheep, have seldom the courage to go out of the trodden paths and roads which are prescribed to them by their guides.”—Art. Hobbes.

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Melissus observes that if any thing were capable of attracting hearts, and conveying invincible charms

to the very marrow, it is the love that is kindled by a modest and chaste object. “The purest heaven,” adds he, “formed this love, and assigned it inflamed hearts for its throne. The stars take care to keep up this fire; and as the poets receive the influences from above which inspire their poetry, we need not wonder that they have so lively a sense of the fire of love: for these influences, having the same origin as love, both kindle and keep it up.

   Sic propagare laborat
Indita naturae semina quisque suae.

Each but endeavours to make those things grow,
The seeds of which kind nature did bestow.

To reduce this explication to plain human language, and to its just simplicity, we must suppose that Melissus meant that the same complexion which disposes a man to poetry, disposes him to love. This proposition is not easy to be made out; for, besides that there are many persons who have a talent at poetry without being of an amorous constitution, it is certain there are innumerable people who cannot make a verse, and yet are more furiously tormented with the fire of love, than those whose poems are the most amorous. How many love verses are printed which are only witty conceits? A poet never so little touched, appropriates to himself whatever he finds in the most passionate elegies; he tries even to carry things higher than what he has read; he invents new turns, and studies the most mournful characters. His design is to make his verses admired; to exercise his vein upon thoughts which at once give a reputation to his poetical wit, and flatter the object of his passion. There are even some who are free from love when they compose this kind of verses. Beza was one of them.—Art. Lotichius.

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Let a man do the best he can, let him build better

systems than Plato’s republic, More’s Utopia, or Campanella’s Commonwealth of the Sun, &c.; all these fine ideas will be found short and deficient when they come to be reduced to practice. The passions of men, that arise from one another in a prodigious variety, would presently ruin the hopes we had conceived from these fine systems. See what happens when mathematicians attempt to apply their speculations about lines and points to matter: they do what they please with their lines and superficies, which are only mere ideas of the mind; they suffer us to divest them of their dimensions, and by this means we demonstrate the finest things imaginable concerning the nature of the circle, and the infinite divisibility of matter. But all this is found defective when applied to that matter which exists out of our minds, that is, to real and impenetrable matter. This may serve for an image of human passions, compared with the speculations of a man who forms a notion of a perfect government.—Art. Hobbes.

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Of all the moral virtues, there were hardly any but religion that could be a matter of dispute in the person of Hobbes. He was frank, civil, and communicative of what he knew, a good friend, a good relation, charitable to the poor, a great observer of equity, and was not at all solicitous about gathering wealth. This last quality is a favourable prejudice for the goodness of his life; for there is not a more copious source of bad actions than avarice; so that they who knew Hobbes, had no occasion to ask him whether he esteemed and loved virtue, but one might have been tempted to have put this question to him:

Heus age, responde, minimum est quod scire laboro,
De Jove quid sentis?

But prithee tell me, ’tis a small request,
What are the thoughts of Jove by you possess'd?

The answer he might have sincerely made, if we believe

those who wrote his life, had been this: that there is one God who is the origin of all things, but who ought not to be circumscribed in the sphere of our narrow reason. He would have added that he embraced Christianity as it was by law established in England, but that he had an aversion to theological disputes; that he chiefly esteemed what tends to the practice of piety and good manners, and that he was used to blame the priests, who corrupted the simplicity of religion by the mixture of a superstitious worship, or of many vain and profane speculations.

Art. Hobbes.

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It was doubtless an uncommon good fortune that the crown of France devolved to Henry IV; there was never a more remote succcession in any hereditary state than this; for there were betwixt ten and eleven degrees of distance betwixt Henry III and him; and when he was born, (there were nine princes of the blood before him; namely, king Henry II and his five sons; Antony king of Navarre his father, and his two sons, who were elder brothers to our Henry. All these princes died to make way for him to the crown.—Art. Henry IV.

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As the enemies to the Belles Lettres cannot deny that their maxims tend to revive barbarism in all respects, they will sometimes expatiate on the usefulness of certain sciences. But they will get nothing by it, for as soon as they place in the number of things useful, such as have a utility either by result or emanation (permit me to use this old school distinction, since it so well comprehends both those kinds of accessory utilities, which may here be alleged) they will find themselves obliged to bring in the Belles -Lettres and critical learning. I can thus retort all their observations against them. If they tell

me that the most abstract theorems of Algebra are very useful to life, because they render the mind of man more capable of perfecting certain arts; I may also say, that a scrupulous enquiry into all historical facts, is capable of producing very great advantages. I dare affirm, that the ridiculous obstinacy of the first - critics who lavished their time upon trifles, for example upon the question whether we ought to say Virgilius or Vergilius, has by accident been of great use; they thereby inspired men with an extreme veneration for antiquity; they disposed them to a sedulous enquiry into the conduct of ancient Greece and of ancient Rome, and thus gave occasion to their improving by those great examples. And what effect would not a grave and majestic sentence taken from Livy or Tacitus, and uttered as having heretofore inclined the Roman senate to one side of a question, have upon hearers thus disposed? I will not scruple to say that it is capable of saving a nation, and perhaps has saved more than one. The president of an assembly pronounces those Latin words with an emphasis; he makes an impression upon their minds by the respect they have for the Roman name; every one goes home convinced, and infuses into his neighbours the sentiments of obedience, and thus you see a civil war stifled in its birth. Malherbe had no notion of this when he said, that a poet is no more useful to a nation than a good player at nine-pins; for, not to descend to all the good things a poet can effect, do you not think, sir, that one of the leading men of a parish, has often by a stanza of Pibrac emphatically pronounced, happily destroyed all the contrivances of a factious declaimer? And in domestic affairs, do you think that those golden sentences recommended by Moliere Moliere, Comédie du Cocu imaginaire. ³² are always ineffectual? I believe they are often so, but not always; and I do not think that Horace in the verses I here cite, spoke only of an imaginary profit.

Os tenerum pueri balbumque poeta figurat:
Torquet ab obscænis jam nunc sermonibus aurem;
Mox etiam pectus præceptis format amicis:
Asperitatis, et invidiæ corrector et iræ.

HORAT. Epist. i. lib. ii. v. 120.

They teach our boys to hate all words obscene,
To follow gen'rous rules and speak like men;
And then slide gently down with virtuous rules
Into the tender breast, and form their souls;
Restrain their envy and correct their rage,
Tell them what's good, instruct their tender age
With fit examples, and their griefs assuage.

Remarks on Project of a Critical and Historical Dictionary.

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I believe there are physicians who sometimes kill or cure their patients without deserving either praise or blame on that account. However skilful they may be, they do not always know the true cause of distempers, and they prescribe a medicine according to the rules of their art, which proves very pernicious, because there is something in the constitution of the patient which they cannot discover. The particular dispositions of the machine, the imagination of the patient affected in a particular manner, the secret passions may produce effects which the skill and most consummate experience of physicians could never have expected. The efficacy of these unknown causes will occasion a medicine given rashly, ignorantly, and foolishly, to drive away a distemper; and another medicine given according to the rules of physic, to kill the patient. There is therefore good and bad fortune here, independent of skill or ignorance, and one cannot be said to be ignorant because he doth not know the secret passions of the heart, or the odd properties of a particular constitution, and because he could not foresee the obstacles they would

make to the virtue of the medicine. A physician is not thought to fail through ignorance, except he be ignorant of what he might have learned from study and practice.—Art. Horstius.

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I have heard related by the late M. Fremont d’Ablancourt, who, being a zealous Huguenot, during his stay at Lisbon, was a most exact observer of the tricks of the monks. He told me that there is a certain convent in Spain, that every year furnishes a monk, who shuts himself up in a hot oven, and continues there some hours, being only clothed with linen. He comes out in the sight of a multitude of people, who look upon it as a great miracle. This show brings in a good income to the convent, and makes it worth while to harden a monk by degrees to bear the heat. I do not reckon all the artifices that may be used in it.—Art. Hirpini.

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Thomasius is in the right to say it was a very scandalous thing to see people maintain that it is true in philosophy, that God is the author of sin by accident, but that it is not true in divinity. And he is in the right to approve of Casmannus, who said that such a division of truth gives a handle to maintain the most impious errors; for, indeed, nothing is more proper to introduce Scepticism, because by such sort of reasoning, we reduce truth to the condition of corporeal qualities. From the same body appearing little or big, according as we see it with glasses, or without, we have reason to conclude, that we are ignorant whether it be great or small, absolutely speaking, and that the absolute littleness or greatness of bodies is unknown to us. If, therefore, the same proposition were true and false, according as it is considered either in divinity or philosophy, it would necessarily follow, that we could not know truth in itself, and that it consisted only in a mutable relation

to the dispositions of our mind, as the pleasantness of foods consists only in a certain relation to the dispositions of the tongue, which, when they happen to change, the foods which were agreeable are no longer so.—Art. Hoffman.

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There are some authors who are a hundred times harder to be pleased in the beginning than in the sequel of their work. Erasures, blots, alterations, and other symptoms of a dissatisfied judgment appear chiefly in the first lines of the original. This has been observed in the manuscript of a tract of Plato, and of that of Petrarch. Here is a passage of Muretus, in which Ariosto is taxed with the same nicety. “I have been told by very great men, and such as could very easily know it, that Lewis Ariosto took incredible pains about the two first verses of that greater poem of his, nor was satisfied till he had turned them every way. The same happened to the famous Tuscan poet, Francis Petrarch, from whose own manuscript, in the hands of Peter Bembus, it is easily seen that he took repeated pains in polishing the second verse of his poem.” Muret. Variar. Leet. lib. xviii. cap. viii. pag. m. 1207. ³³ M. de Vigneul Marville says, “there are writers, who are infinitely at a loss how to begin, but run apace when once the way is opened. The first lines of Thuanus’s history cost him more pains than all the rest, but when once he had conquered that difficulty, he made great speed.” The other thing I have to say is, that there are authors, who, revising a work they desire to reprint, are at greater pains than at the first composition. They apply themselves with more pleasure and scrupulousness to correct a printed copy than a manuscript. But for the most part it is lost labour; for there are few who compare editions, and unless they be patiently and skilfully compared, the importance of the corrections is not perceived.—Art. Linaire.

They, who compose with too difficult a judgment, and correct their productions with extreme severity, are at last discouraged by the labour, and afraid of touching their own work. They look on it as a rack, and painful business, and delay, as much as possible, the setting their hand to it; the remembrance of the fatigue they have been at in altering one page, makes them dread the event, so they suffer whole months to pass without returning to the painful task, and thus, while we imagine that their book is far advanced, because we know it has been in hand for ten or twelve years, nothing is found except, perhaps, some rough draughts and disjointed pieces; and it often happens that they die before the work has received its form. Hereby they deprive themselves of the glory they might aspire to. Some are more happy; they are indefatigable, and by assiduously filing and polishing their compositions, without arty intermission, they at last find them worthy of public notice; but the pains they are at to please themselves very often mars all, for there is a certain degree of correctness, beyond which nothing can be done, but what, instead of perfecting the work, and giving it more nerves and strength, weakens and dispirits it. “Perfectum opus absolutumque est, nec jam splendescit lima, sed atteritur.—It is a perfect and finished work, but the file , instead of brightening, has worn it away.” Pliny the younger, who uses these words in one of his letters makes use of the same thought in another place to shew his friend the mischief of an over correctness. “Diligentiam tuam in retractandis operibus valde probo. Est tamen aliquis modus, primum, quod nimia cura deterit magis, quam emendat; deinde, quod nos a recentioribus revocat, simulque nec absolvit priora, et inchoare posteriora non patitur. Epist. xxxv. lib. ix. ³⁴ ----I very much approve your diligence in revising your works. Yet is there some measure to be observed;

first, because too much care rather spoils than amends: in the next place because it neither suffers you to finish one piece nor begin another.” Quintilian, another great master, lays down the same principle, and explains it admirably, and declares that a writing, by continual mending and new moulding, loses its natural force. The sound parts, says he, are cut off; the blood drained, and it looks like a body covered with scars: how fine is his expression! “Et ipsa emendatio finem habet. Sunt enim qui ad omnia scripta tanquam vitiosa redeant; et quasi nihil fas fit rectum esse quod primum est, melius existiment quicquid est aliud, idque faciant quoties librum in manus resumpserint, similes medicis etiam integra secantibus. Accidit itaque ut cicatricosa sint, et exanguia, et cura pejora. Sit igitur aliquando quod placeat, aut certe quod sufficiat; ut opus poliat lima, non exterat.” Quintil. lib. x. cap. iv. pag. m. 488. ³⁵ The orator Calvus was an instance of this. He set up too severe a court of inquisition against his own writings, and by disciplining them over rigorously and to a degree of superstition, broke the constitution and even the heart of them. Quintilian calls it selfcalumny. Here is a metaphor, which a modern author has made use of on this occasion. “There are some barren wits,” says he, “who, having made an effort once in their life, never leave combing it, till they have plucked the very hairs off, and after all it proves an abortion.” We may reckon Sanazar in the number of the moderns, who have been troubled with Calvus the orator’s distemper.—Art. Linacre.

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I have said elsewhere, that it is sometimes easier to be an honest man, than to appear so; and I here affirm that it is sometimes more difficult to appear a faithful historian than to be such in reality. I do not mean that it is an easy task to write a history, which shall impartially represent the prudence and ill

conduct, the right and wrong, the advantages and losses of two parties. This requires a man without passions, or the sage of the Stoics, a man who never can be met with, and exists only in idea. It is not sufficient to belong to a country no way concerned either with France or Spain, during the wars between those two crowns. We may favour indirectly, at least by our wishes, one party more than the other, notwithstanding this neutrality. Our own national interests, or national caprices may inspire this preference. It is impossible to express how this prejudices an historian against the party he dislikes; how many secret passions it raises in him which corrupt his judgment, and how it accustoms him to relate, with much more pleasure, the successes of the party he favours. I add, that a private person shall, even from his own particular constitution, conceive an affection for one foreign nation greater than for another, and that the situation of his own fortune may make him have more to hope or fear from one prince than from another. These are some of the obstacles to an historian’s being perfectly candid, and observing a just medium, but a great many more might be mentioned, and if every thing were to be, which may bias an author in writing the history of his own country, the catalogue would be much larger. It must therefore be owned to be a very difficult task to compose an impartial history.

But if an author could surmount all these obstacles, the snares and surprises of his passions, the prejudice of education, the force of prepossessions, and the habits contracted before undertaking to write his history; if, in short, he should relate sincerely the good and bad of each party, without inclining to either side, where would he find readers candid enough to do him the justice he deserves? Would they take the same pains to divest themselves of all prepossession? Would they not be displeased with what they find related either in prejudice to the party they love, or in

favour of that which they dislike? Would they believe these accounts to be true? Would they not reject every thing as false which should contradict their prejudices? Consequently, this author would find more difficulty to be esteemed impartial, than to be really so.—Art. Capriata.

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It is not a just way of reasoning to say such a book would better deserve the approbation of the most learned men in Europe if it were shorter, therefore it ought to have been shorter. Softly, gentlemen; there is nothing useless in these volumes which you mention; for what may not serve you, may serve several others, and I am very sure that if all the citizens of the republic of letters were brought together, that each might give his opinion upon what should be taken away, and what should be left, in a vast compilation, it would appear that the passages which some would throw out, would be precisely those which others would retain. A hundred reflections might be made, not only on the true properties of works of this kind, but likewise on the inseparable union of criticism and trifles. Many might also be made on the difference which lies between a good book and a useful one: between an author who only proposes to himself the approbation of a few scientifics, and one who prefers the general benefit to the glory of meriting that approbation, which is not less hard to attain than a crown.— Remarks on Project of Historical and Critical Dictionary.

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Pericles bore abuse patiently. We do not find that any of the poets who assailed him, were punished for it: yet it was very likely that a man of so great an authority might have easily repressed the boldness of those men. They touched him in the most sensible part; for they called Aspasia an impudent and lecherous

concubine, upon the stage. “She was called in plays a new Omphale, and Dejanira, and in other places a Juno. Cratinus expressly styles her, “a concubine, impudently lewd.” His indolence proceeded partly from policy; for if Pericles had endeavoured to stop the mouths of the poets, he would have made the Athenians sensible of a thing which it was not his interest they should see: they would have perceived that they had only the name of a republic, and that all the power was in reality united in one man. Nothing will more effectually hinder the people from perceiving the extinction of their liberty, than to be permitted to abuse, without being punished for it, those who enjoy the reality of a monarchical power, under such names as have nothing that is odious. It was therefore necessary that Pericles should despise the licentiousness of the stage; but we must not ascribe his patience to mere art and policy; it was also an effect of his great soul; for a man of such courage and spirit as he was, had never endured such ill usage with so much patience, had he not an extraordinary great soul. Read this passage of his life: “one time, being reviled and spoken ill of all day long, in his own hearing, by a virulent and ill-tongued rascal, that cared not what he said, he bore it patiently all along, without returning him one word, although in the open court, or assembly of the people, where he was at the same time engaged in the prosecution and dispatch of some weighty, urgent affair. In the evening, he went home as one unconcerned, in very good order, this fellow dogged him at the heels, and pelted him all the way he went, with all the hard words and foul language he could take up. As he was entering his house, it being by this time dark, he ordered one of his servants to take a light, and to go along with the man, and to see him safe home,” He showed the force of his courage and his great patience in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Whilst the enemies were ravaging Attica, Pericles, not being able to repulse them, was contented to provide for the security of Athens. The Athenians murmured at his conduct, made sharp verses against him, and reviled and threatened him. He despised their railing, and followed his own judgment with the greatest tranquillity. What courage! what constancy! what strength of mind in this forbearance!—Art. Pericles.

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We do not know the domestic privacy of the ancient Pagans, as we know those of the countries where auricular confession is practised; and therefore we cannot tell whether marriage was so brutishly dishonoured among the Pagans as it is among the Christians: but at least it is probable that the Infidels did not surpass, in this respect, many persons who believe all the doctrines of the gospel. Those for whom the famous book, de Matrimonio, of the Jesuit Sanchez, is written, are such as go to confession, and submit to the penances enjoined them by their confessors. They therefore believe what the Scripture teaches us of heaven and hell, they believe purgatory, and the other doctrines of the Romish communion; and yet, in the midst of this persuasion, you see them plunged into abominable impurities, which are not fit to be named, and which draw down severe reproaches upon the heads of such authors as dare to mention them. I observe this against those who persuade themselves that the corruption of manners proceeds from men’s doubting, or being ignorant that there is another life after this.—Art. Sanchez.

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There is nothing more proper to fill us with admiration of Alexander, and make us ascribe to him qualities beyond all imagination,' than to see so many great princes in all ages, who with all their courage, intrigue, politics, and good successes, yet do but little aggrandize themselves: they know how to conquer,

but not to reap the fruits of their victories. To what purpose were so many advantages that Charls V obtained over France? Did they augment his patrimony? Was it not a considerable point, after the great victory that was gained at St Quentin, by his successor, to recover what France had taken from the Duke of Savoy, an ally of the house of Austria, and which be could only obtain by the folly or treachery of the favourites of Henry II.—Art. Macedonia.

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Cecilia, the wife of Metellus, had a niece fit for marriage: she carried her one night into a chapel, to seek for nuptial presages. This was the custom when a young woman was intended for marriage. The aunt sat down, and the niece stood by her; they listened a long time without hearing any thing; the young lady, finding herself weary with standing, desired her aunt, to let her sit down a few minutes; “with all my heart,” replied the aunt, “I will give you my place.” These words were the omen they sought for; Cæcilia died quickly after, and her husband married the young niece. This is what Valerius Maximus relates. Cicero mentions it also.—Art. Metellus.

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The Socinians deny the eternity of hell, because they cannot conceive how it should consist with the infinite goodness of God. They cannot conceive that such goodness is compatible with a hell of a hundred times a hundred thousand million of years; so many ages of misery appear to them a most horrid cruelty; but as they will never rise from cruelty to infinite goodness by retrenching a thousand ages, and then another thousand, so long as they leave any years of torment behind, they must say, if they mean to avoid inconsistency, that under a God infinitely good, there can be no hell: this proves too much; for after this thesis is laid down, it is not conceivable that men can be liable to diseases and afflictions; so that, from

these principles, there would follow a falsehood, and even the impossibility of a thing which exists beyond dispute, and of which we have but too sad experience. If you say, that under the best monarchs there are dungeons, tortures, gibbets, and executioners, frequently made use of; I answer, that none of these things could take place, if it were in the power of those monarchs to inspire all the world with a firm resolution of demeaning themselves as they ought. How can you get clear of this labyrinth, if God dispose of matter as he thinks fit, and be the free author of the laws that subject man to sickness and uneasiness? There is no escaping, therefore, but by saying that God cannot do every thing he would; and that matter contains the seeds of evil, which shoot up one way or other, whether he will or not, and in spite of any combination or texture whatsoever, which he may make of its particles.—Art. Origen.

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To be impartial to every body, we must say that those who engage in disputes with the Socinians, and take new roads, seldom fail to lose their way. This has been seen in England five or six years ago. A famous divine thinking he could, not confute some Socinian tracts by the hypothesis of the schools, imagined another; but it was pretended that he established Tritheism, and bis hypothesis was not suffered to take footing; whence we may infer, how impossible it is to confute the philosophical objections of the Socinians, and since they acknowledge the scripture, they ought immediately to be attacked by it. This is the weak side of their defence, the other is the strong one.

Art. Dissertation concerning the Manichees.

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Balzac speaks of Malherbe when he laughs at a certain tyrant of syllables. The description is very lively, and may convince us that there are people who

are little respected after their deaths, by those persons who gave them a thousand tokens of veneration while alive. They fancy, that provided they do not name them, they may be as smart upon them as they please. This is my proof of it: “You remember the old court pedagogue who was formerly called the tyrant of words and syllables, and who when be was in a good humour, called himself the grammarian with spectacles and grey hair. We must not imitate the ridiculous things which are related of this old doctor; our ambition is to follow better examples. I pity a man who makes so great a difference between pas and point; who treats of gerunds and principles as if they were two separate nations, jealous of their frontiers. This doctor, in the vulgar tongue used to say, that he had endeavoured for many years to ungascon the court, but that he could not obtain his end. Death caught him turning a period, and he was surprised by his climacterical year, whilst he was deliberating whether doute and erreur were masculine or feminine. With what attention did he desire to be heard, when he dogmatized on the use and virtue of particles.” Art. Malherbe.

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There is scarce any need of a commentary upon the Limbo, after what we have said, nevertheless I will add a passage of M. Drelincourt. “It seems,” says he, speaking to the missionaries, “that some masters of your schools have really descended into the bowels of the earth, and exactly discovered and visited all the secret places there. Their most common opinion is, that there are under the earth four different places, or one deep place divided into four parts: they say that the lowest place is hell, where all the souls of the damned are, and where their bodies shall also be after their resurrection, and there also all the devils are to be shut up. That the place next to hell is purgatory, or the place where souls are purged; but

rather, where they satisfy divine justice by their sufferings. They say, that in these two places there is the same fire and equal heat, and that all the difference is only in respect of duration. They think, that adjoining to purgatory there is the Limbo of little children who die without the sacrament; and that the fourth is the Limbo of the fathers, that is, the place where the souls of the just were gathered together, who died before the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. They maintain that this place is empty at present, so that it is a house to let.” According to this doctrine, the Limbo of little children is become the porch of hell since the ascension of Jesus Christ, for the Limbo of the fathers must go for nothing after that time. Here we might put the same question which formerly the cynic philosopher asked when he saw the entry of a little house; “Where is the house belonging to this gate?” because the entry of it was so very great. The frontiers of hell must needs be of larger extent than all the kingdom, which is very monstrous. Let us put together all the infants who lose their lives without having received baptism, whether they die after their birth, or perish by a voluntary or involuntary miscarriage, and doubtless you will have the two-thirds of mankind. The numbers of abortives would be astonishing, if they were certainly known, though we should only reckon the victims of the point of honor, those of jealousy, and those of effeminacy. All times have been concerned in this crime in all parts of the earth, as might be easily proved.—Art. Patin.

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Let them say, if they will, that Pareus introduced the principle of authority in lieu of that of enquiry, and that this was to employ the engines of popery against his brethren, after he had inveighed against them as abominable. Let them exclaim, if they

please, that this conduct resembles the stratagem of the Trojans:

Mutemus clipeos, Danaumque insignia nobis
Aptemus. Dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat.

Virgil. Æn. lib. ii. ver. 389.

Then change we shields, and their devices bear,
Let fraud supply the want of force in war.

Let them, I say, declaim thus, and draw from it a thousand reproaches of contradiction, those who know the powerful virtue of “distinguo;" those who remember “distingue tempora et conciliabis scriptures.—Distinguish the times, and you will reconcile the Scriptures;" those who consider that there are certain maxims which may be laid aside at a certain time, and which must be taken up again at last, and that the abuse does not take away the use, will suffer these deciaimers to cry out and storm on. Fancy to yourselves a circle hanging at the entry of a house, whereof one half is without and the other half within; make it turn about upon its centre, and you will see that exactly as one half goes out of the bouse, another will enter in: just so it is with certain principles of human society; it is a thing that must be done, and after all, the greatest persecution is not that of the secular arm, but that of some restless men, who very preposterously set up for reformers.—Art. Pareus.

He who can repeat whatever he has read, and assumes magisterial airs, rolling a torrent of literature from his lips, with the greatest ease, silences and stuns other learned men in conversation. They look little and mere dwarfs by him; they cannot hinder his engrossing the whole discourse, nor dare they attempt it: they sometimes suspect he is in the wrong, but have not the assurance to contradict him

distrusting their own memory, and dreading his, even in things which they fancy he mistakes.

Art. Montmaur.

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In the reign of Tiberius, an illustrious lady was very simple; she believed she had lain with the god Anubis, and bragged of it as of a great favour. The Monks who have played so many tricks, chiefly to inveigle women, never durst, that I know of, tell them that such a saint would lie with them. The ideas of purity and immateriality have always been strictly joined in Christianity with those of beatification. But I make no doubt, if they would undertake such a thing, that they might bring some devout women, that now are, to believe what the Roman votary of Anubis suffered herself to be persuaded of. This maxim, “the corruption of the most excellent things is the worst,” is verified by the example of religion. There is nothing so advantageous to man, if we consider either the mind or the heart, as to know God well. On the other hand, nothing is so fatal to all the faculties of a reasonable mind, as to know God ill, as the Pagans did.—Art. Scamander.

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They pretend that Machiavel said, in one of his works, that he had rather be sent to hell after his death, than go to paradise; “for,” added he, “I shall find none in paradise, but beggars, and poor monks, and hermits, and apostles; but in hell, I shall live with popes and cardinals, and with kings and princes.” Hotman relates this, and some other curious things, in a Letter, dated December 25, 1580.

Art. Machiavel.

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They who by Alexander’s order had killed Parmenio, came to give him an account of that important service with some reason to be uneasy; for they were followed by the deputies of the province which they had

governed, who had orders to accuse them of many crimes. They particularized the pillages of these governors, the sacrileges they had committed, and their attempts upon the honour of the ladies. Alexander having examined this accusation, declared that the deputies had forgotten the greatest crime of all, which was, that the accused believed he would never return from his expedition to the Indies; “for, if they had believed it,” said he, “they would not have dared to commit these violences.”—Art. Macedonia.

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There are scarcely any authors who do not complain of the ingratitude of their own time. Those who are called fine wits, signalize themselves above others in this kind of complaint. They think it would not be giving themselves airs to own that fortune looked upon them with a favourable eye. We might imagine they are afraid, lest if they should appear contented with her favours, the public would take it for a confession that they have no merit; for there is a common saying, very antient, which informs us that she is blind, and makes a very bad choice of the objects of her love. Read all the letters of Balzac, and you may learn from them two things; that he had a very handsome income, which allowed him to treat his friends, to give them excellent soups, &c., and to have for himself all the conveniences of life in one of the pleasantest places of the kingdom; and yet, that he looked upon himself as confined to a desert, and so persecuted by ill fortune, that we might think her sharpest, and most poisoned darts had been reserved for him. What can be concluded from these two things, but that he had too good an opinion of himself? Thus, all those common-places, which our fine wits, and so many other writers urge against fortune, are, in truth, a pompous commendation of the great and good qualities they fancy themselves possessed of; there is, therefore, a little too much vanity

in it. I will add, that oftentimes these kind of complaints are much more a sign of the ingratitude of authors towards their age, than a testimony of the ingratitude of the age towards authors; for commonly those who live in the greatest plenty are they who murmur most at the capriciousness of fortune, and the injustice of the times.—Art. Pays.

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The book published by Des Marests, entitled, “The Advice of the Holy Ghost to the King,” has all the characters of fanaticism. He there explains “Three prophecies of Scripture, which he pretends are to be understood of the Jansenists, who are to be destroyed by the king of France, with the pomp of a great army.” This is one character, which is as the popular mark of fanatics, for if you consider it well, how spiritual soever these people endeavour to appear, yet their spirituality commonly aims at some external and sensible effect, and they are never satisfied till they have carried on their imaginations and allegories to some great event that is sensible, of which they fancy they are to be not only the spectators, but also the ministers.—Art. Marests.

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Tacitus says, “that Caligula was enticed by Macro himself to make love to his wife.” If Macro did this, he acted a part which is very common among courtiers, and generally among those who have a mind to make their fortune. One of their maxims is that which Tiresias gave Ulysses:

Scortator erit, cave te roget.
     Ultro Penelopen facilis potiori trade.

Stay not till ask’d; but of thy own accord,
As all good-natur’d husbands ought to do,
Conduct thy wife to her adulterer’s bed.

In our days, they would not seem to sleep, but would

go into another chamber, if they saw their Mecenas disposed to caress their wives.

- - - - doctus spectare lacunar,
Doctus et ad calicem vigilanti stertere naso.

Who his taught eyes up to the deling throws.
And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose.

Dryden.

This would be more decent than what Galba did, who, having invited Mecenas, the favourite of Augustus, to supper, and perceiving he began to ogle, and cast amorous glances at his wife, gently reclined his head upon a cushion, and pretended to fall asleep.

Art. Macro.

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There are some preachers who may be compared to the nightingale; such as, though meagre and small, have yet so sounding a voice, that they make all the vaults of a church resound; so that one who hears without seeing them, would think they were persons of a gigantic stature. Look at them, and you are as much surprised as if you were to compare the smallness of a nightingale with the strength of its notes. There is, if I am not mistaken, a fable to this purpose, and I remember the observation of a Lacedemonian, who, having plucked off the feathers of a nightingale, defined it to be a thing which was nothing but voice.—Art. Musso.   .

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Dudithius denied, “That he who adhered to either opinion, whether about the Trinity or any thing else, could be a mediator between the contending parties, or decide and settle the controversy.” He said, “he ought to espouse neither side, who would bring the parties to an agreement by an impartial judgment, or determine on one side what he thought just, and agreeable to the laws. That parties were not

wont to take him for a judge, who was not thus neutral, and commonly rejected him if appointed by another; because it is likely his imbibed opinion would bias him tacitly to condemn those of a contrary sentiment. For, though he were both pious and learned, yet, possibly he might judge wrong by relying on his prejudiced opinion.” This notion of Dudithius is very consonant to custom, for where is the man who would chuse for arbitrators or judges of his differences those he knows are persuaded he is in the wrong? It is even true, that such men are scarcely capable of pronouncing an equitable sentence. It is a misfortune that such a rule as this cannot take place in the disputes of religion; but the state of things is such, that such disputes must necessarily be determined in the very church where they grow, which inevitably makes the same persons judges and parties. It would be to no purpose to murmur at this, for necessity has no law. Observe, by the way, one of the reasons which frustrates the endeavours of all mediators in religion, and renders them odious. If they are believed to be perfectly neuter, they axe detested as irreligious men; if they are thought to incline more to one side, they are suspected and odious to one of the parties, and do not fully satisfy the other. They will have all or nothing.—Art. Modrevius.

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Appian tells us, " that after the fatal wars which the Romans had with the Gauls, certain sums of money were laid by at Rome, which it was forbid to touch, under pain of a public execration, except it were in case of a war against the Gauls. It was remonstrated to Caesar, that their ancestors had given the curse of the country to any one that should touch this money unless in this necessity. He made a jest of this curse, and said, ‘ that having subdued the Gauls, he had delivered Rome from the obligation under which she might lie when she founded this

treasury.'” Lucan has made an ingenious reflection indeed; but I think it is a little strained. He says, “that people have the laws, privileges, and liberty, less at heart than money, and that it was only for the sake of this treasure that they attempted to resist Caesar.”—Art. Metellus.

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There is no nation in the world that speaks more advantageously of their monarchs, and of the obedience due to them, than the Turks: they are utter strangers to the great disputes of the western politicians concerning the origin of sovereignty; they never speak one word of any original contract between kings and their people; they never enquire whether the right of governing is derived from the people, nor how far it is communicable. According to their maxim, the best form of government is the despotic power of a monarch; to die in obedience to the Sultan is a step by which they are to ascend to the highest stations of paradise. Who would not believe, from all this, that the throne of the grand seignior is fixed upon an immoveable foundation? And yet, if we consult history, we shall find there are no monarchs in the world whose authority is more precarious than that of the Ottoman emperors. Their subjects are not satisfied with mutinying against them, with dethroning them, and strangling them, before the conclusion of their rebellion; they likewise make use of other means; they depose them very often by a legal process; they deliberate upon their fate with tranquillity and gravity; they put it to the vote and condemn them to perpetual imprisonment. The Koran is consulted upon these occasions, as the prophecies of the sybils were formerly at Rome; and if they can engage the head of their religion in their interests, they may be sure of success. If the mufti declare that the law of God does not allow them to pay allegiance to a prince who is sick, foolish, unhappy, or in prison, it amounts

to as much, or more, than if the pope should excommunicate a Christian prince.—Art. Osman.

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The famous surgeon Ambrose Pare, was saved from the massacre on St Bartholomew’s day, by the selfish favour of Charles IX. What Brantome says upon this subject, is too remarkable to be here omitted. “The king, as soon as it was day, having put his head out of his chamber window, whenever he saw any in the suburbs of St Germains removing and making their escape, took a great hunting harquebuss which he had, and shot at them, but in vain, for the harquebuss would not carry so far, and cried out continually, kill, kill; and would have none of them saved, except M. Ambrose Pare, his first surgeon, and the best in Christendom; he had sent for him to come the night before to his own chamber and wardrobe, commanding him not to stir from thence; for he said that it was not reasonable that he who could do great service to so many people, should be thus massacred.”—Art. ParÉ.

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To publish books of great learning, to make Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent I own, neither is it extremely rare. It is incomparably more difficult to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of things, and who know how to diversify them a hundred ways. How many authors are there, who are admired for their works upon the account of the vast learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a conversation? Some have a memory full of holes like a sieve, or like the cask of the Danaides which receives every thing, but retains nothing; all would run out and be entirely lost, if they had not some reservoirs just ready. These are their collections, which are treasures that fail not in time of need when

one writes a book, but are very needless in familiar discourses about learning.—Art. Menage.

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It would suit the capacity of people in general, much more to distinguish the true religion by certain external marks, than to enter into a severe scrutiny of the doctrine. Now of all external marks, the constancy of martyrs is the most capable of making an impression. It was altogether serviceable in advancing the Christian faith; the ashes of martyrs were the seeds of just men, and produced innumerable proselytes to the gospel. But this proof became equivocal after Christianity was split into several communions; each of them had their respective martyrs; and so to avoid the being imposed upon, there was a necessity of entering into the discussion of their doctrine, and to disclaim this compendious rule of truth, viz. such a communion has martyrs, therefore it is good.—Art. Origen.

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The following exemplary mode of robbing a church is related by Brantome: “Donna Maria Padilla, one of the honourable ladies of Spain, and one of the most zealous for the rebellion raised in Spain at the beginning of the reign of the emperor Charles, as Don Antony Guevara relates, who wanting money to pay her soldiers, took all the gold and silver from the reliques of Toledo. But this was done with a holy and pleasant ceremony, and an air of sanctity, for she entered the church kneeling, with her hands clasped together, her face covered with a black veil, or to speak more properly and according to Rabelais, with a wet sack, a sad and mournful countenance, beating her breast, weeping and sighing, having two great lighted torches carried before her; and then, having genteely committed the robbery, she retired no less genteely with the same ceremony, thinking,

and believing most firmly, that upon the account of this doleful ceremony, or rather hypocrisy, God would not be displeased with her. They might very well laugh who could see her act this same mystery.” Art. Padilla.

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Frances de Bouchet was the wife of Artus de Cossé. Her husband was deprived on her account, of the office of superintendant of the finances, whereby he got the first year enough to pay all his debts, and as much money again as he owed. He carried his wife to court to wait upon Catherine de Medici. She was a country lady, who had never seen the court, and who was so simple as to thank her majesty for the superintendancy, as a favour whereby they had been enabled to pay their debts and to get wealth. The marshal, who heard this compliment, was provoked at his wife’s folly, but the queen was wonderfully pleased with so ingenuous a confession, and that the lady had revealed enough to ruin her husband, if he should fall under the displeasure of that princess.—Art. Fouquet.

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Who will dare to deny that ideas of the point of honour, are the strongest bank which stops the torrent of incontinence? Who will maintain, generally speaking, that the laws of religion are the most effectual remedy, or so effectual as this? If religion had more power over women than the point of honour, would there be so many found that stifle their children? Is there any crime more enormous and more contrary to nature, than the conduct of those wretched mothers? They are persuaded that, by destroying the fruit of their womb, they commit a more detestable murder in the eyes of God, than wretches who rob and murder on the highway. Those of whom Thuanus and Patin speak, are besides, for the most part,

persuaded, that they deprive their children of eternal life, and that they throw them headlong into the Limbo, where they shall suffer throughout all eternity. This persuasion aggravates their crime to such a degree of cruelty as is not to be imagined; nevertheless, they commit it in contempt of God and in spite of their religion, and all this because they will not lose their share in human honour; and therefore, this honour must have more power over them, than the instinct of conscience and all divine laws; nay, it has even greater power than the fear of death, for after they exposed themselves to that punishment, and it was very probable they would suffer it, the law being often put in execution, all signified nothing, for these murders were still as frequent as ever. What can be said more convincing to prove the dominion of the point of honour, and the absolute power it has over our souls? Would you plainly see that the force of the point of honour is superior to that of conscience, consider the six hundred in Paris, who had destroyed their children, according to Patin. Religion dissuaded them from it by several motives: it showed them the murder, the eternal damnation of the infant, the injustice of their intention, and the good use they should make of their sin. They desired to preserve the reputation of women of honour; this design was unjust, a robbery, a mere usurpation of a benefit which did not belong to them; nay, it was a usurpation designed for a very bad use, for deceiving the public in general, and the husband in particular; for they wished they were in a condition to bestow themselves upon a man as a chaste and modest maid, and without the least blemish. The advantage they might reap from discovering their fault, was great with respect to their salvation, from thence they might draw’ a thousand reasons of humility and contrition. The point of honour, however, no sooner appeared, but it overturned all this great number of batteries: must we not therefore acknowledge, that it is a thousand times more powerful than conscience? Art. Patin.

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I will conclude this remark with a thing that Mr Milton made a great noise about, and which was renewed in the last dispute about the Icon Basilike, which is this, that the prayer king Charles I delivered to Dr Juxton immediately before his death, intitled “A Prayer in the time of Captivity/’ which is printed at the end of the best editions of his book, is perfectly like a prayer which is found in a romance, I mean in Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. This will appear by the parallel which Milton placed at the end of his answer:—

The prayer of king Charles, styled a prayer in time of captivity.

O powerful and eternal God, to whom nothing is so great that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned; look upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto me, as to thee shall seem most convenient: let not injury, O Lord, triumph over me, and let my faults by thy hand be corrected, and make not my unjust enemies the ministers of thy justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdom this be the aptest chastisement for my inexcusable transgressions; if this ungrateful bondage be fittest for my over-high desires; if the pride of my not enough humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and cheerfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer; only thus much let me crave of thee (let my craving, O Lord, . be accepted of thee, since it even proceeds from thee) that by thy goodness, which is thyself, thou wilt suffer some beam of thy majesty so to shine in my mind,

that I, who in my greatest afflictions acknowledge it my noblest title to be thy creature, may still depend confidently on thee. Let calamity be the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue; O let not their prevailing power be to my destruction; and if it be thy will that they more and more vex me with punishment, yet, O Lord, never let their wickedness have such a hand, but that I may still carry a pure mind and stedfast resolution ever to serve thee without fear or presumption, yet with that humble confidence which may best please thee; so that at the last I may come to thy eternal kingdom, through the merits of thy son, our alone saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The prayer of Pamela taken word for word from the Arcadia.

O all-seeing-light and eternal life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great that it may resist, or small that it is contemned, look upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto me, as to thee shall seem most convenient. Let not injury, O Lord, triumph over me, and let my faults by thy hand be corrected; and make not mine unjust enemy the minister of thy justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdom this be the aptest chastisement for my inexcusable folly; if this low bondage be fittest for my over high desires; if the pride of my not enough humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Only thus much let me crave of thee, (let my craving, O Lord, be accepted of thee, since even that proceeds from thee) let me crave, even by the noble title which in my greatest affliction I may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness, which is thyself, that thou wilt suffer some beams of thy majesty to shine into my mind, that it may still depend confidently

on thee. Let calamity be the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue; let their power prevail, but prevail not to destruction; let my greatness be their prey; let my pain be the sweetness of their revenge. Let them (if so it seem good unto thee), vex me with more and more punishment; but, O Lord, never let their wickedness have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure mind in a pure body. And pausing a while: “and O most gracious Lord,” said she, “whatever becomes of me, preserve the virtuous Musidorus.”—Art. Milton.

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Nephes Ogli, a name which, among the Turks, signifies the Son of the Holy Ghost, and is given to certain persons, born after an extraordinary manner, I mean of a virgin-mother. There are, it is said, some Turkish virgins, who live in such retirement, that they never see a man; they go but very rarely to the mosques; and when they do, they tarry there from nine at night till midnight, and join to their prayers such contorsions of body and howlings, that they exhaust all their strength, and oftentimes happen to fall down to the ground in a swoon. If they find themselves with child from that time, they give out they are so by the grace of the Holy Ghost; and upon this account, the children they bring forth are called Nephes Ogli: they are looked upon as a sort of people who have the gift of miracles.

Art. Nephes Ogli.

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Musculus declares, in a sermon, in 1564, that they who teach that Jesus Christ died only as to his human nature, belong to the devil, both body and soul; and that the orthodox doctrine is, that he died, both as to his human and divine nature. He published a book, in 1575, to prove that it is by no means necessary, that the glorious body of Jesus Christ should physically fill up any space: “Contra necessitatem

physicæ locationis in corpora Christi clarificato et glorioso.” What is very strange and melancholy in all this is, that these absurd doctrines which arise one from another, when you have once asserted the real presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament, &c. have met with patrons, who neither wanted wit nor eloquence, nor learning, and who have invented a thousand shifts to elude the objections of their adversaries. It must be ingenuously confessed, that to answer the arguments of the Ubiquitarians, some things are necessary to be asserted no less inconceivable than Ubiquity itself·—Art. Musculus.

In some countries, it was supposed, that the first kiss a maid received from her gallant, was that of her betrothing. This we read in the History of Marseilles: “it was usual for the bridegroom to give a ring to the bride on the day of their betrothing, and make also some considerable present in acknowledgment for the kiss he gave her. In effect, Fulco, viscount of Marseilles, made a grant, in 1005, to Odila, betrothed to him, for the first kiss, of all the demesnes he had in the territory of Sixfours, Cireste, Soliers, Cuges, and Offers. This custom was founded, as I take it, upon the law ‘ Si a Sponso,’ which ordained that, when the marriage did not take effect, the woman betrothed should get half the presents she had received from the man, for the ancients believed that the purity of a virgin was defiled by one single kiss; but this law at present is abrogated in this kingdom.”—Art. Mammillarians.

At Rome, where they were good judges of the merit of warriors, they made a great difference between those who only gained battles, and those who finished a war; they were much more praised who made triumphant entries, with the effigies of several provinces, or of many conquered towns, than those who could

only boast of having killed many men. This was good policy in the Romans, though it was attended with some inconveniences. They did not commonly continue the generals of their armies more than two or three years successively in their offices; for almost every year, the new consul went to relieve the consul of the foregoing year: for which reason every one did his endeavour to finish the war, and not to leave the honour of crowning the work to another. Every one aspired to the glory of the “Debellare.” But, when a general is sure of the command till the end of the war, he is not always in a humour to make too much haste; he is glad to delay the peace; and if he follow, in his victories, the maxim, “that a golden bridge must be made for the vanquished enemy;” it is not because he is disinterested, and does not seek for profit; but, on the contrary, it is his particular interest which inclines him to give the flying enemy time to recover again, and to prolong the war. A king, who commands his troops in person, and who does not make use of his advantages, has not the same motive: he does, without doubt, generally speaking, his utmost endeavour to improve his victories; but a Caesar, an Alexander, a prince, in a word, that can make the best use of his victories, is a great rarity. A general, who only gains victories for the profit of those who deal in mourning clothes, may be found every where.—Art. Cesar.

It is a very common opinion that some persons are fortunate, and others unfortunate; and we can hardly refrain from believing it, when we consider public events. There are some admirals, who are almost always crossed by contrary winds, in the most important designs; there are others for whom a fair wind seems to rise, every time they have any great design to execute. This good and bad fortune does not appear so manifestly in land armies; but it cannot

be denied, that rain or fair weather, and many other accidents which do not at all depend upon our wisdom, oftener cross or hinder the designs of certain generals, than they do those of others: it may be observed, likewise, that there are some generals, who are never seconded with what they call lucky hits, but when they fight against captains who are accounted unlucky. If we were to trace the adventures of private persons, we should find proportionably as many marks of these lucky or unlucky hits. No atheist, no epicurean, can admit of this distinction of good and bad fortune; it is inconsistent with their system. Will they allege the influences of the stars? This is fit only to be said in a sonnet; for the stars can do nothing in this case, unless they are directed by an intelligent principle; and this is what they do not admit: they will say, that he is an unlucky man, who purchases two hundred lottery tickets out of three thousand, and draws no prize at all; and that he is a lucky man, who buys only three tickets out of a hundred thousand, and draws the highest prize: but they will maintain that this is done without the direction of any intelligent being, and is a necessary consequence of the mixture of the tickets. In effect, if there were no providence, somebody must necessarily have the greatest prize, and one person rather than a hundred others; but they cannot maintain, according to their system, that certain men shall always have the great prizes, who buy only a few tickets, and that those who buy a great number, shall never draw any prize; for this would plainly evince the direction of some genius, that is, either a friend or an enemy: and thus it appears why they cannot admit the distinction, properly speaking, of fortunate and unfortunate persons.

Art. Mahomet II.

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I have read, within these few days, a very sprightly thought; it is this: “the politicians have a language

peculiar to themselves; words and phrases, with them, do not signify the same thing with other men. I do not know whether the gentlemen of the French academy have comprehended politics in the number of the arts and sciences, of which they have given us a dictionary; this, in my opinion, would be necessary: for instance, in the political style, to swear upon the holy Gospels, to observe such or such a treaty, signifies sometimes barely that one swears it, but not that one will observe it; nay, it sometimes signifies that nothing of the treaty shall be performed. The generality of people do not understand this language; but the politicians understand it well, and take their measures accordingly.” I add, that if the gentlemen of the French academy would give us a universal dictionary of all arts, they would engage in an endless work. They would daily discover new arts, which have terms of a peculiar signification. The art of weekly relations is one of them; the art of controversy is another. Words do not go there in their usual sense; you see people who charge one another with horrid doctrines; they reply and rejoin, and still reciprocally find their adversaries’ doctrine more and more abominable. This complaint appears in almost every page; and alarms the readers, as if there were reason to fear that, without a speedy remedy, this gangrene would diffuse its infection through the whole body. Such as are not used to this style, conceive a thousand scruples; they fear they have disobeyed St Paul’s precept, “a man that is a heretic reject;” for they have conversed with the contesting parties. “Who would have believed,” say they, “that such divines, who have eaten for a long time the bread of the orthodox, should have nourished such monsters in their hearts? We know not whom to trust; either one or the other of them, or perhaps both, may be disguised wolves rather than shepherds.” But have a little patience; stay till some expert arbitrators, initiated in that language, have reconciled the parties, and you will find these suspected words signify nothing less than what you believed.—Art. Machiavel.

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Morinus was not fortunate in his predictions concerning a secretary of state, who depended much on his astrological oracles. I mean the count de Chavigni, and shall give an instance of his credulity with relation to astrology. Having determined to go into Provence in the year 1646, he desired to have Morinus along with him; but as this astrologer never undertook any thing without the approbation of the stars, he would not venture upon this journey except they promised him good success. He therefore desired time to consult them, and after that, promised to accompany his Mecenas. He desired he would leave it to him to choose a propitious hour for their departure, and assured him that experience would teach him how material a thing it is to set out on an enterprize under a favourable disposition of the stars. M. de Chavigny would contest no such point with him, but assured him of his entire submission. Morinus found that the best time to set out would be upon the ninth of May, nine minutes after four in the morning, and desired that every thing might be ready at that moment. The orders of the secretary were so punctual, and so well executed, that every thing was accordingly ready at that instant. He had four good dials in his garden, on which they observed for half an hour together, the approach of the critical minute, and took coach precisely at the time when the shadow on the dial had reached this minute. They arrived happily at Antibes; and when M. Chavigny, who was . count of it, was about to return to Paris, he was informed by his astrologer, that it was requisite to consult the heavens about the hour of their departure. He was no less tractable now than he had been the first time; he ordered every thing to be got ready with

such exactness, that he and his retinue were on horseback precisely at twenty-seven minutes after four in the morning of the second of July. Their return was very prosperous; the master, and servants, and horses arrived all in good health, notwithstanding the heat of the season: but when he came to Paris, he discovered some intrigues of the cabinet against his fortune. He was accused, among other things, of having taken an astrologer with him, to consult about the destiny of the king, the queen, and the cardinal Mazarin: finding that his adversaries had made him greatly suspected, he twice desired Morinus to tell him whether the stars threatened him with any misfortune. Morinus answered him that they did not, and advised him to wait on the cardinal, but precautioned him that all hours were not alike propitious, and that he would choose him one by the rules of astrology: he chose him an hour in which the tenth house, which is that of dignities, went very well; Chavigny followed his directions, and was very well received by the cardinal. I only relate all these things to show the weakness of those who sometimes sit at the helm. The destiny of nations and kingdoms is in their hands, whilst their own depends upon the caprices and visions of an astrologer. This secretary of state was named, in the year 1645, for the embassy to Munster. It is probable he would have taken Morinus along with him, to know the critical minute when this or that memorial ought to be presented, or this or that answer given. Would not this have been hazarding a thousand good opportunities of advancing the general peace so necessary to all Europe? Morinus made such account of the doctrine of elections, that he believed there was nothing more useful to kings, or their first ministers, than a council of three astrologers, who should have the schemes of nativity, not only of all the neighbouring princes, but also of all the great men of the court: " by this means,” said he, “we should know the favourable conjuncture to begin a war, what confederate prince would act first, and what generals ought to be chosen. We should not give the chief direction, as is usually done, to an unsuccessful prince; we should not take the year that is most adverse to him, and most propitious to the prince, his enemy; we should not choose unfortunate generals; and what I have said,” adds he, “of war, ought to be applied to the marriages of kings, embassies, &c.!!!”—Art. Morinus.

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France was very unfortunate in the sixteenth century. If we might be permitted to speak of Fortune as the Heathens did, who, for want of evidence which we now have, never rightly understood that word to mean a direction of the most wise and just hand of providence, we should be apt to accuse her of too great partiality towards Spain in opposition to France; for it is impossible to read the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with regard to the affairs of Italy, without observing the ascendant and superiority the former had over the latter; which is enough, even at this day, to cover the French with confusion, and to swell the Spaniards with pride. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave a turn to Spain to be uppermost, and the seventeenth to be undermost. The ascendant and superiority of France was reserved for that century. I only explain and paraphrase on the text of Mariana. “Thus Fortune diverts herself with human affairs; thus do we, with our appurtenances, take our turns. The Arragonian, for instance, had his way to the throne paved by heaven, to which nothing is difficult. The gods seem to have been at this time on ill terms with that family (of Anjou) angry with the French, and favourable to the Arragonians.” What may comfort France is, that she was even then thought infinitely more formidable than Spain; and for that reason, stronger alliances

were formed to hinder her establishing herself in Italy, than to prevent Spain from making any conquests in that country. The princes of Italy hoped they might put a stop to the Spaniards, but despaired of resisting the French. It is on this account that, in all times, and in this age more than ever, the confederacies against France will be difficult to be dissolved, the apprehensions of each member serving for an excellent cement, to unite them the stronger. Whilst this page is reprinting, I understand by the public news, that the duke of Anjou, second son to the Dauphin of France, succeeds not only to the crown of Naples, but likewise to all the dominions of the Spanish monarchy. This confirms what I have said, concerning the seventeenth century’s bringing on the turn of France; since the last year of it confers on a prince of the blood royal of that kingdom, the whole dominions of the king of Spain.

Art. Naples.

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There is a great deal of difference between the public lasciviousness of a king, and the scandalous amours of a queen. Without doubt, it would be much better for the subjects, that their prince should scandalize them with a great number of bastards, than load them with taxes, and tyrannize over them; and it is very possible a prince, inordinately given to women, may preserve order in his dominions, make justice and commerce flourish, and no way injure any of his subjects. I confess also, a people may be more happy under an unchaste queen, in case she treats them gently and prudently, than under one who is chaste, yet withal, covetous, cruel, and ambitious. This admits of no difficulty; but it seems to me morally impossible that, in a country where the laws of religion and of worldly honour are so severe against female unchastity, as they are in our western parts of the world, a people should be happy under a queen who

tramples under foot modesty, and that virtue which is the greatest ornament of her sex. The allowances usually given to the unlawful amours of a monarch, hinder us from concluding, that his giving such a loose to that passion, will likewise make him incapable of governing himself in any other affairs. Whereas, the severity of the laws of worldly honour against the public indecencies of a woman, of what quality soever, induces us to believe, that a queen who has transgressed those bounds, will stop at no excess whatsoever. She must necessarily have lost all manner of shame; she must be insensible of glory; she must have a mean soul, who can resolveto sacrifice her honour and conscience, and the esteem of the public, to a criminal passion which she has conceived, either for one of her domestics or vassals. Can the subjects of such a princess have any regard for her, after they have formed such an idea of her from such plausible reasons? Can they avoid having the last contempt for her; and is not such a contempt the cause of seditions? Besides, it is next to impossible, but that such an immodest conduct in a queen must likewise debauch all the ladies of her court, and thus spread throughout her kingdom a pernicious neglect of these laws of decency and modesty, which so greatly contribute to the preserving in the world that remnant of chastity which it is yet in possession of. By this means, what was only despised before, will immediately become insufferable and abominable to all who have that regard they; ought to have to the public good. What can be expected from all this but factions and revolts? The amours of a king are not liable to the same inconveniences. Ambition; a desire of growing more powerful: a false idea of grandeur, have almost always had a greater share in the downfal of their favourites than love, whereas an amorous queen is wholly plunged into those disorders, which debase her, by the brutal passion for carnal pleasures. We may add this farther consideration: a queen who abandons herself to her gallants, becomes their slave; she can deny them nothing; it is not she, but they, properly speaking, who reign. Their vanity and their other passions, which are a source of disorders fruitful enough of themselves, become yet more fatal through the jealousies they raise in the minds of men of the highest rank. They concert measures to supplant them, they cabal, they form parties, and inflame the people. Can any subjects be happy under such a government? Experience confirms what I say; for history scarcely furnishes us with any examples of amorous queens who have given a loose to their lust, whose reigns have not been unfortunate. What troubles were there not in the kingdom of Naples during the reigns of these two Joans? What wars of all kinds? What plundering? so that we may conclude, contrary to the opinion of Brantome, that lewdness in a queen is a very blamable vice, and a capital defect. It is an offence from which the people have reason to apprehend the most dreadful consequences.—Art. Naples.

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The curiosity of Margaret of Navarre, which induced her to an attentive observation of a dying person, clearly shows that her ideas concerning the nature of the soul, were very far from being truly philosophical. Here is something very singular:“I have heard say of her,” it is Brantome who speaks, “that one of her maids of honour, for whom she had a great affection, being at the point of death, she had a mind to see her die; and at the time she lay in her extremity, she staid close by her, fixing her eyes steadfastly upon her till she was quite dead. Some of her most intimate ladies asked her, ‘why she viewed with so much earnestness this dying creature?’ she answered, ‘ that having heard so many learned men discourse, that the soul and spirit departed from the

body at the time of death, she had a mind to see whether there proceeded from it any wind, or noise, or the least sound in the world at the separation; but that she perceived nothing like it; and she mentioned a reason given her, by the same doctors, why the swan sung when dying; for, on her asking the question, they answered, it was owing to the spirits, which struggled to pass through his long neck: in like manner,' she said, ‘ she had a mind to see the soul go out, or perceive and hear what this soul or spirit did at its departure;' and added, that, ‘if she was not well settled in the faith, she should not know what to think of this dislodgment and separation of the soul and body: but that, she resolved to believe what her God and his church commanded her, without entering farther into other curiosities:' as indeed, she was one of the devoutest ladies in the world, who had not only the name of God in her mouth, but also the fear of him in her heart.” A great many reflections might be made on this passage; but we will content ourselves with observing two things; the one, that this princess is very excusable for conceiving the soul of man as a being which separates locally from the body at the moment the man expires; for, in that age, this was the universal opinion of the divines and philosophers, and is yet, even at this very day, the opinion of all the doctors who are not Cartesians: they suppose that the soul is locally present in the organs of the human body, and is co-extended with the matter which it animates; but that, at the moment of death, it ceases to possess that place, and passes, really and physically, into another, I confess this does not prove that we ought to believe this transmigration to be accompanied with any noise, or sibilation, as the queen of Navarre imagined; but it is not strange that a lady, who carried her views farther than the generality, should suspect that a subtle, invisible, and yet actually extended substance, must fly out of the body with some sort of noise, like that of the flight of an arrow, or of spirituous liquors, when they find vent through some chink of the vessel they are contained in.

Art. Navarre.

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There are many modern poets, who would look upon themselves to be highly reproached for having prodigally spent their praises, if they should be told that they had praised their very wives. They would think that this expression would have more force than if it should be said of them that they had praised all from the sceptre down to the shepherd’s crook, and from the cedar of mount Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall. The most gallant poets among the ancients did not pretend to so false and absurd a nicety. Ovid praises his wife extremely; Martial would have posterity to know that his wife spoke well, and that she kept him from being sorry that he had left Rome.

Tu desidenum dominæ mihi mitius urbis
   Esse jubes: Romam tu mihi sola facis.

At my long absence from the town
   You bid me less afflicted be,
Since I am not ashamed to own
   That you alone are Rome to me.

I shall omit Statius, who hath also much praised his wife.—Art. Scala.

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We must allow, that whilst sovereigns have no better support than the doctrines of divines, they rely upon weather-cocks, that turn with every wind, and use the word of God as a nose of wax, to the great scandal of good and pious souls, and the great satisfaction of profane men, and free-thinkers, who are charmed with having an opportunity to say of the Spirit that inspired the prophets and apostles, the same thing which the protestants say of the Spirit that

makes the pope speak ex cathedra, and the councils? viz. that he believes like a common father between the Thomists and the Scotists, that he qualifies his expressions in such a manner as to favour both parties alike, that he will neither disarm those who revolt, nor shelter them from the attacks of those who persist in their obedience; in a word, that he follows the example of neutral cities, where they sell arms to both sides.

Art. SamblanCai.

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A man writes much more quickly when he furnishes the expression himself, than when he copies those of another; for the trouble of turning every moment to look at the manuscript, occasions a great loss of time, and he is a considerable gainer by it, who does no more than copy his own thoughts. A transcriber, who takes the sense of a whole period, and expresses it in his own way, will finish, in one day, what would require two if he followed the manuscript word for word. Those who make a good number of collections, and insert whole pages of a book together, will readily grant what I suppose; they will remember that, in order to have sooner done, they did not copy word for word, but retrenched and altered many words; the authors themselves, who quote long passages, often take this liberty, to shorten the tedious trouble of transcribing. There is sometimes a little fraud in it, but not always. What shall I say of the many involuntary omissions of the transcribers, and especially when two periods bordering upon one another begin with the same word? They read it over, it is true, with some sort of attention, but often spare themselves the trouble of comparing their copy with the original line by line; and, except the omissions evidently and grossly mar the series of a thought, they imagine that all is very well: now, it is certain, that there are periods, or half-periods, which may be

taken out of a book, and still leave a tolerable sense behind.—Art. Polonius.

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It is an absurd thing to say, with Gassendus and Rodon, that God contributes to the preservation of creatures by preventing their destruction. Could any thing destroy them, since there are but two sorts of beings in the Universe, viz. God and the creatures? Such a care would be as needless as the watchfulness of a shepherd against wolves, in a country where there are no wolves, and even where there could be none. It were in vain to say that a body destroys another body, that fire destroys wood, that a man kills another man, &c. for this is not a destruction of creatures, but only a change of modifications: modes or accidents are not accounted the subject of the creation, which are the substances in which they reside.—Art. Rodon.

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“Peter de Ronsard, son of Louis de Ronsard, and Joan de Chandrier,” says Binet, “was born in the castle de la Poissonnerie, upon a Saturday, the eleventh of September, 1524; on which day king Francis was made prisoner before Pavia. It is a question, whether France was more unfortunate by the king’s imprisonment, or happy by such a birth; which was made remarkable, like that of many other great men, by such a memorable event. Thus the birth of the great Alexander was signalised, and as it were lighted by the flames which consumed the temple of Diana at Ephesus.” What a fine compensation is this! Was not France well indemnified for the imprisonment of her king, a misfortune which had like to have occasioned the ruin of the kingdom, and which actually occasioned a long series of shameful and dismal losses to the nation?—Was not France well indemnified, since a wit was born on that very day, who adorned her with thousands of verses by way of sonnets, madrigals, stanzas, hymns, odes, &c.? This

thought of Claudius Binet could be tolerable only in the poem of a panegyrist; and even there, men of sense would censure it as an insipid hyperbole.

Art. Ronsard.

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Few people like to be accounted older than they are. I do not except even those who do not intend to marry. I know very well that some old men, who, as it was said of the first duke d’Epernon, have passed the age of dying, are as willing to make themselves five or six years older than they are, as they were formerly desirous to make themselves younger by so many years: vanity finds its account in this; since it is a more wonderful thing that a man of ninety or a hundred years should still have some vigour, than if he enjoyed his health pretty well at eighty or eightyfive years of age. Other old men are well pleased with a right computation; they are afraid that a wrong reckoning, which brings them nearer than it ought to the end of their race, will make them less respected.—Art. Theron.

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Sennertus says, “that human souls have no quantity, and that they are indivisible; and yet, that each of them can produce its kind; that is, that the soul of a dog can produce many other souls of dogs:"this would be a true creation, and a more difficult work than the conversion of the seed into an organised body. Had he known the hypothesis which has been invented since he died, I believe he would have heartily embraced it; it is the hypothesis mentioned by me before, which has afforded many fine hints to the illustrious Leibnitz: it is that of modern natural philosophers, who, having discovered, with the help of microscopes, that there are animals in the semen, think that living bodies are organised before they are born, and probably from the beginning of all things; which leads them to this thought; “that ever since the first

original of things, the souls have been united to the same organised bodies; and that generation or birth is only the extension or growth of the individuum, which is the primitive and continual subject of the soul; that this subject is not destroyed by death; that it loses only the particles of matter wherewith it was enlarged; that it recovers new ones in another birth, &c. This hypothesis removes the great difficulties that occur in assigning the course of organization; to have recourse to God, as to the immediate cause, is not to philosophise; to have recourse to the general laws of the communication of motion, is but a poor solution; for, since it is agreed by all sects that those laws cannot produce, I will not say a mill, or a clock, but the coarsest tool that is in a. smith’s shop, how shall they be able to produce the body of a dog, or even a rose and a pomegranate? To have recourse to the celestial bodies, or to substantial forms, is a pitiful shift. We want, in this case, a cause which has an idea of its work, and knows how to form it: those two things are requisite in those who make a watch, and build a ship; much more are they necessary in the cause of the organization of living bodies. It is certain, the celestial bodies have no idea of a human body, and that they know not how it ought to be formed; the Peripatetics own, that the substantial forms of plants and beasts know not how matter ought to be modified, to give it the organs that are in a tree or in a chicken; and therefore they are not the cause of that organization. Those who say they are the cause of it, though they know not the contrivance of that work, are a thousand times more absurd than those who should say that a man can make a clock without thinking of it, without having even had any idea of it, and without knowing what he does, or what he designs. This objection shows the falsity of Sennertus’s opinion; for he would not have said, the souls he admitted in the seed of plants and animals, had an idea of all the organs of plants and animals, and knew how to frame and place them in their proper places: and therefore, it had been a great help to him, if he had been told that there are organized individuums in the seed; for it is more easy to conceive that a soul united to such an individuum, may be the cause of their growth, than it is to apprehend that it can organize a drop of liquor, and change it into the body of a dog.—Art. Sennertus.                                       ·

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I know some men, who have read several times Boetius’ “De Consolatione Philosophise,” and find a great difference between the objections and the answers of that author. Boetius was both a great philosopher and a very good man. Groaning under the weight of his misfortune, and overwhelmed with grief, he supposes that philosophy comes to comfort him. He raises several objections about Providence: Philosophy answers them as well as she can; but whereas the difficulties of Boetius are fitted to the meanest capacity, the solutions can hardly be understood without the greatest attention and quickest apprehension. Philosophy mistrusts herself, and requires most times that she may be allowed to wind about and to trace up things higher; and though what she says be never so solid, it happens sometimes that we do not understand it; and if she convince us, she does it most times without enlightening the mind. Such is the opinion of some persons who have read Boetius.—Art. Ruffinus.

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Erasmus is in the right; those who have a mind to deceive others look for fools; but those, who are too stupid to be sensible of the beauties of a poem, or to desire a long fame, were not fit to be deceived by a Simonides. Daniel Heinsius observes, “that few are capable of being deceived by great men, and almost only those who have some confused notions

of their excellency can be deceived with some judgment.” I have said elsewhere, that a great captain complained that his enemies were so silly, that he could not succeed in his stratagems against them. I have said also, that Balzac observed, “that the maids of his village were too silly to be deceived by a man of wit.”—Art. Simonides.

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The church was not better served in the time of the elections, than it was under the concordat. “A great lady,” observes Brantome, “said one day in my hearing, that she heard king Francis say, that the chief reason which moved him to make the concordat with pope Leo, in order to abolish the elections of bishops and abbots, and of some priors, was because those elections were attended with great abuses among the monks; for, without any regard to a man’s abilities and learning, which were then very rare in monasteries, they elected most times the merriest fellows, the greatest whoremongers and tipplers, the greatest lovers of dogs and hawks, in a word, the greatest debauchees, that they might have the liberty to live a loose and disorderly life, under such abbots and priors, who’ were bound by an oath to indulge them in their debaucheries. The worst of all was, that when they could not agree in their elections, they frequently fought and wounded one another; nay, sometimes their quarrels were attended with murder: in short, they made a greater noise, and formed more cabals and factions than there are at the creation of the rector of the University of Paris, which I have seen formerly; I do not know whether it be so still. Besides, some elected a silly monk, who wanted courage and resolution to keep them to their duty, and threatened him when he pretended to severity. Others elected a poor wretch, who stole their money and starved his monks, which occasioned great complaints, and the impoverishing of the abbey. In a

word, there were many other abuses in those elections which I pass over in silence. Besides, that great king, considering the many services of his nobility, and not being able to reward them with the revenues of his demesnes, and the money arising from taxes (for the whole was necessary to carry on his long wars) he thought it more proper to bestow upon them some abbeys, and other church preferments, than to leave them in the hands of the monks, ‘a sort of men’ said he, ‘good for nothing but eating and drinking, gaming, making bow-strings and ferret-bags, catching rabbits, whistling to linnets, and living an idle and disorderly life;’ and therefore it was then a common saying:‘as idle as a priest or a monk,’ and likewise: ‘as covetous, and as great a whoremonger as a priest or a monk,’ as the Italians say, ‘ Preti, fratri monachi et pulli, mai non son satulli.’—It is to be observed, that if the elections have been attended with abuses among monks, those of bishops have not been more regular; for when a man had a mind to be made a bishop, he bribed the canons and other dignified men with money, or great promises; so that it was rather a downright simony, than a lawful and holy election, in imitation of many popes of those times, who bribed the cardinals, in order to get their votes. There were also great tumults and factions in the chapters, so far as to beat and kill one another, as it was formerly practised in Germany, for the canons were fighting men, as they are still, and made use of swords as well as of the Breviary. The bishops lived a very disorderly life in those times; they resided in their dioceses more than they do now, for they never left them; but then they minded nothing but dogs, hawks, feasts, and women, of whom they had a seraglio, as I have been told of one, who picked up young and handsome girls of ten years of age, and had them bred up and down in several villages (as gentlemen do their dogs) in order to make use of them when grown up. They were allowed to live such a scandalous life; for they were so much dreaded, that none would have had the courage to censure them for it. I might say a great deal more upon this subject; but I will not raise a scandal. ‘Our present bishops,’ said a great man to me, ‘ are more discreet, or at least more cunning hypocrites, and know better how to conceal their vices.’ God forbid that what I have said of the ancient and modern bishops should be understood of all; for in former times many of them were good and holy men, as there are still, and there will be many, with God’s blessing, who loves and never forsakes his people.”—Art. Du PrÈ.

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Peiresc dining at London with several learned men, could by no means be excused from drinking a health which Dr Thorius drank to him. The glass was of a monstrous size, for which reason Peiresc excused himself a long while, and alleged a thousand reasons; but he was forced to drink it. Before he did it, he made this bargain, that Thorius should drink a health to be proposed by him in his turn. After he had drank the wine, he filled the same glass with water, and took it off, first naming the health to the doctor. Thorius had like to have sunk, as if he had been struck with thunder; but finding no way to avoid it, he fetched several profound sighs, he put his mouth a thousand times to the brim of the glass, and as often withdrew it. He called to his assistance all the fine sayings of the Greek and Latin poets, and was almost the whole day in emptying, by repeated trials, this accursed cup.—Art. Thorius.

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The Jansenists learned of Pascal to denote themselves in French by on. He pretended that an honest man ought to shun the naming of himself, and even to make use of the words I and me, and he was wont to say upon this occasion, that Christian piety annihilates

the human me, and that human civility conceals and suppresses it. “It is not,” adds the author of the Art of Thinking, “that this rule should be improved to a scruple, for there are some occasions wherein a man would needlessly torment himself, if be would shun these words; but it is always good to have it in view, to keep one’s self from the ill custom of some persons, who speak only of themselves, and are always quoting themselves, when the question is not about their opinion.” Whence, probably, it came that the Jansenists of France did so much affect to make use of the particle on. One of their adversaries pretended to know by that mark that the book of an anonymous writer which he refuted, was to be attributed to them.—Art. Pascal.

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The Roman senate not being able to put an end to a matter of great moment that was under debate, put it off till the next day, and ordered that the thing should be kept secret till they had made a decree about it. Young Papyrius, who had followed his father into the senate, according to the custom of that time, being asked by his mother what had been done in the assembly, answered: “that everybody was ordered to be silent about it, and that therefore he was not allowed to say anything of it. This answer increased the lady’s curiosity. The youth being more importuned than before, was obliged to tell a lie, in order to make himself easy, without disobeying the senate. He told his mother that this question had been debated: ‘Whether it would be more advantageous to the republic to allow a husband to have two wives, or a wife to have two husbands.’ The lady, surprised at this discourse, went out hastily to acquaint the other women with it; so that the next day a whole crowd of them appeared at the gate of the senate-house, entreating the assembly with tears in their eyes, that they would rather ordain that a

woman should have two husbands, than that a man should have two wives. The senators were surprized to see these women making such an uproar; but young Papyrius explained the thing to them, telling them what device he had made use of to satisfy his mother’s curiosity. The senate admired him for it, and ordered, that for the time to come, he should be the only boy allowed to be present in the assembly. This is the origin of the surname “Prætextatus.” We find this story in Aulus Gellius, and there is some probability that it is true, since the grave Cato mentioned it in a speech that was published. I am not ignorant that this censor jested now and then, but it was neither a proper time, nor a fit place for a man of his character to jest in. Perhaps it will be objected to me, that Livy, who, mentions another commotion of the Roman ladies, says nothing of this; but it may be answered, that perhaps he gave an account of it in the books of his history that are lost.

Art. PrÆtextatus.

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The doctrine of guardian angels so much spoken of in the church of Rome, and which is a practical doctrine, and attended with all the train of religious worship, is much more ancient than the Christian religion. There is no system more proper to set up the doctrine of the Platonists duly rectified, than that of occasional causes. I do not know what will happen, but I am apt to think, that some time or other, philosophers will be forced to lay aside mechanical principles, unless the wills of some intelligent beings be associated with them; and truly there is no hypothesis more capable of giving an account of events than that which admits of such an association. I mean chiefly such events as go by the names of casualty, fortune, good luck, ill luck; things, the causes whereof are, without doubt, regulated and determined by some general laws unknown to us, but which, probably,

are only occasional causes, like those which cause our souls to act upon our bodies.—Art. Plotinus.

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In the year 1608, the ecclesiastical senate of the elector Palatine deliberated about the means of putting a stop to the fatal disputes of the protestant divines. Scultetus, preacher to his electoral highness, and some others, were of opinion that it was for the advantage of the church that, for the time to come, the reformed should compose neither apologies, nor antilogies, nor any such like pieces of controversy in religious matters; that it was not possible to say or write any thing but what had been said or written a great while ago; that the confessions of faith, with their expositions, were sufficient for any one who sincerely enquired after truth; that there was no example of such obstinate and eager disputes among the prophets and apostles: that such books increased differences, instead of terminating them, and that the satirical sharpness of the authors of those books afforded diversion to profane men, and was a matter of triumph for the Papists, and inspired a great many people with irreligion.—Art.PITISCUS.

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Rosen, a Livonian officer of celebrity, left a pension to his horse, with a meadow, and his liberty. One who would lay hold upon all occasions to communicate his collections would here have a large field; for though he spoke not of all the beasts to which testimonies have been given of affection and gratitude, but only of such as concern the horses, he might quote a very great number of examples. I know some such myself. It is an easy matter to consult Philip Camerarius, who hath made very good collections on this subject in the first tome of his “Historical Meditations." Some quotations relating to this may also be seen in the “Peintures Morales” of Father le Moine. He has not omitted Caligula, and has represented

the folly in such affected terms, that I cannot forbear , reciting them. “An emperor,” says he, “caused a palace of marble to be built for a horse; he appointed him the furniture and retinue of a prince, and not contented with this, he named him Consul: he gave him a place in the senate, and caused him to be registered in the Fasti among the Catos and Pompeys. Had he survived him, he would undoubtedly have made a god of him, by an apotheosis of a new form, and have constrained the twelve deities of the capital to receive him into their number.” In Pliny also, may be seen some instances of honours done to horses. All military gentlemen have not had the like sentiments of gratitude for their horses as Rosen. A certain Neapolitan gentleman abandoned his horse, and was enjoined to maintain him. Father Pardies, concerning this, quotes Spondanus, and says, “that a great prince of former times, of great renown for his virtue, and for the zeal he had to do justice to every one, thought he gave a judgment worthy his grandeur, when he decreed in favour of an old horse, which, having been forsaken by his master in his old age, to whom he had done very considerable services in the war, went, I know not by what instinct, or by what accident, and sounded a bell, which had been hung on purpose at the gate of the palace, that all who thought themselves injured, might ring it in order to make their complaints, and demand justice.” Sabba Castiglione, a gentleman of Milan, who died knight of Malta, and commander of Faenza, in the month of March, 1554, has given a very long account of this in the hundred and twenty second chapter of his “Ricordi necessarii dal principio della vita civile, sino a fine di quella, &c.” See Camerarius. I believe the judges, by whose award the cat of Mad. de Puis, a famous player on the harp, lost a law suit, would not in such manner have treated the horse of the Neapolitan gentleman. The last will and testament of this lady made a great noise; a process was raised to set it aside. Messieurs Maurice, Vaunier, and de Ferriere, famous advocates, displayed their eloquence, the first in defending it, the two last in pleading against it. The pension which the deceased had left to her cat, and the visits she had appointed to be made to her every week, were the things which were most exclaimed against.—Art. Rosen.

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The poet Simonides made a very ridiculous satire against women. He supposed “that their souls had a different original, according to the diversity of their humours; that the souls of some women came from horses, foxes, or apes, &c., and that the souls of others proceeded from the sea or the earth, &c.” Ælian quotes what he said concerning women who loved to paint and trick up themselves; he derived their souls from horses. I omit the Greek verses that follow in Ælian, and I shall only set down the conclusion of the passage in Latin. “Talis quidem uxor præbet se spectaculum aliis jucundum, sed viro nocet suo: Nisi file fuerit aut rex, aut vir præpotens. Hujusmodi uxor oblectare quern queat.” The meaning of which is, that such a woman is a pleasant sight to other men, but very prejudicial to her husband, unless he be a king or a great lord. You will find in Stobæus not only the same verses mentioned by Ælian, but also many more out of the same work of Simonides. That poet was very near as unjust as the Italian author who maintained that women have no souls.—Art. Simonides.

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Charles IX was in the right to deal with the poets as if they had made Agur’s prayer to him: “Give us neither poverty nor riches; feed us with food convenient for us.” This medium is perhaps the greatest blessing that can be wished for the commonwealth of learning; for some authors would not have published

several good books if they had lived in plenty; others would have been more accurate in their compositions had they not been so poor. The great poverty of some authors has occasioned a multitude of bad books, which the public are pestered with. A moderate income would have enabled them to polish their works; but the pressing necessity of a man, encumbered with a great family, and persecuted by a creditor, whom he puts off until he be paid for his copy, and gratified for his epistle dedicatory, obliges him to write so hastily, that he has no time to lick his young cubs into the best shape before he shews them to the world. It is to be observed, that there are some such works which it is better to have, than to be wholly deprived of them. For instance, it was better to have Du Ryer’s Translations of the Authors, translated by him, than none at all; and therefore, if we suppose that Du Ryer would have lived an idle life if he had been rich, it was better for the public that he had no more than was necessary to maintain him. When a writer designs to raise his fortune, he endeavours to write well; but he has no sooner obtained his end, than he grows remiss. This is what may be observed in preachers; they are thought to preach better before they are bishops, than after they have attained to that dignity, which puts me in mind of an ingenious repartee. A great prince of our time designing to besiege a town, was told that it would be defended by a mareschal of France, and did not alter his resolution upon that account, saying, “that the governor who is not yet mareschal of France is more to be feared than one who is so already.”

Art. Ronsard.

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A critical book, which strongly represents to a priest, the ill use he makes of his time and wit, is no unprofitable work. On the contrary, the public good seems to require that there should be men bold

enough to censure those ecclesiastics whose lives are not conformable to their profession. Now, it is leading a life very inconsistent with the duty of a priest, who had the cure of souls, to set up for a wit, and to spend the best part of his time in reading books of gallantry, and writing, what they call fine things, to ladies and gentlemen. This ought to be left to the Voitures and the Sarrazins, and, in general, to those who are not of a profession which forbids their meddling with trifles. Or, if the inclination be strongly bent, and the person have a happy talent that way, he ought to keep in a lay-station; and then he is free to make as many verses, and write as many letters of gallantry as he pleases. He may jest and trifle in his books at discretion, and laugh at the sour censurer who is displeased with it. But if he enter upon an ecclesiastical life, and take on him the charge of souls, or is only in orders, he ought not to play the gallant, either with his tongue, or his pen. Nay, methinks it were to be wished, that the rewards which the Voitures, the Sarrazins, and other fine wits, have a just claim to, were not assigned them out of the revenues of the church, as they are very frequently. It was never the intention of those who enriched the church, that the estates which they bestowed on her should furnish a recompence for amorous poetry, romances, or plays. Do you believe that those who straightened their families, to bestow an easy life on such as serve at the altar, ever designed to maintain wits who turn their studies this way? Do you believe, I say, that they designed to give such authors wherewithal to keep an open table, with every thing rich, luxurious, and good?—Art. Costar.

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It is evident, that an author who employs the authority of the civil magistrate, for the prohibition of books written against him, manifestly betrays his defeat and inability to answer, while he increases the

curiosity of the public after those very books. Why then do so many authors recur to this method, when they have interest enough to make it effectual. Is it a very agreeable thing, to declare to all the world that they are not able to resist an author who is their adversary? Can self-love find its account in raising a desire to read those books in several people, who would otherwise never hear of them, and who buy them on no other account than because they are informed that those books are prohibited? Can selflove, I say, which is so angry at the contents of them, and so eager to stifle the memory of them, finds its account in putting the public upon enquiring more curiously into the particulars contained in them? What charm can there be in publishing a sentence of prohibition of certain books in the gazettes? Is not this the way to proclaim to all Europe the shameful necessity a man lies under of imploring that assistance of the civil magistrate which he ought only to seek from his pen?—Art. THOMAS.

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Observe how human nature can join in the same soul the baseness of hypocrisy with the most insolent boldness. There was never a prince more haughty or more outrageous than John duke of Burgundy: he was surnamed “Without Fear.” Nevertheless, what deceit and dissimulation do not we find in his conduct? Here is one instance of it: he repaired to the church whither the body of the duke of Orleans, murdered by his contrivance, was brought. He pretended to be as much afflicted as any body else; he put on mourning afterwards, as all the princes did, and was not ashamed to assist with them at the funeral pomp in the church of the Celestins, where that duke, when alive, desired to be buried. He pulled off his mask only, when he saw that the king’s council was upon the point of ordering

that Robert de Canni, suspected of the murder, should be imprisoned.—Art. Petit.

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We must not believe all that the poets and writers of romances make amorous people say; the descriptions of their sufferings are hyperbolical: however, it must be granted, that love is an inexhaustible source of miseries and disorders. It is a very necessary passion upon earth for the preservation of animals: it is the soul of the world with respect to them; nay, it is certain, that the Divine Providence has annexed a thousand charms and pleasures to so necessary a passion; but, on the other hand, it is attended with a thousand troubles. How many people can neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, and lose their health and wits upon that account? The number of those who die of it is greater than it is thought: those who hang themselves for it, are indeed few; nevertheless, there are some. This concerns those whose love is not answered. As for those who are as much beloved as they love others, they pay dear for their pleasures; for not to say, that their reason is disordered, and that their passion is frequently contrary to their true interest, whereby they are exposed to a vast number of troubles; does not bare jealousy, which commonly attends their passion, make them sufficiently unhappy? Can there be a more lamentable, melancholy, and dreadful condition than that of jealous people? Let their jealousy be well or ill-grounded, it is all one; their torment is equally great; they are not the less persecuted by the chimeras and phantoms of their imagination; the fire wherewith they are wasted and consumed, is not more tolerable for it! and therefore it may be said, that if there were a river in the world which could cure lovers, it would be more valuable than gold.— Art. Telemenus.

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A great difference exists between those, who are altogether for countenancing popular prejudices, and those who reason equitably and solidly. The latter think themselves obliged in justice and good policy not to give a wrong account of the forces, valour, and good conduct, of the enemy: the former are for telling impudent lies about those things. Not but that they are sensible that such lies may be prejudicial in some respects; but they rather choose to indulge by such means their own passions and those of the people; and because they take them to be more advantageous than detrimental, considering the humour of the populace, they do not approve of sincerity, and if any one practise it, they impudently charge him with treason.—Art. St.Aldegonde.

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I shall insert in this place La Mothe de Vayer’s reflection upon Muretus’s invective. “It were to be wished,” says Muretus, “that we had not been informed of so many debaucheries and horrid vices of Tiberius, Nero, and Caligula. They are such obscenities as almost make the paper blush on which Suetonius represents them: and, if what an ancient author says be true; that there is but little difference between those who carefully describe such infamous things, and those who teach them; we can hardly excuse Suetonius for taking such a method. . . . .But because I have answered such like objections in some other sections, I shall only say, that there will hardly be any historian free from guilt, if it be a crime to mention wicked actions, which make up the greatest, and often the most considerable part of his narration. Nay, do. not we read of parricides, incests, idolatries, and a thousand profanations in the sacred history, among good examples and holy instructions?” It is a difficult thing to make a good answer to that observation, and I would fain know what the scrupulous Tillemont would have said against it. Doubtless

he would have alleged specious things; but it might have been inferred from them, that the most ancient historian, and the most knowing, since he wrote by inspiration, should not have mentioned the daughters of Lot; for it may be said with the same reason, that this was indirectly teaching incest in such circumstances as were horrible. It might also be inferred from the reasons alleged by that author, that history in general ought to be condemned; and that the trial of Madame de Brinvilliers should not have been published at Paris; and that the relations of conspiracies should not Be made public, because one may learn from them the art of plotting, and avoiding the wrong measures, which made that of the Pazzi, and several others miscarry.—Art. Suetonius.

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I have read in Brantome, that Chatellard, a French , gentleman, who was beheaded in Scotland for loving the queen, and, which is more, making an attempt upon the honour of that princess, had no other viaticum or preparation for death, than the reading of a poem of Ronsard; which plainly shews, that he took it to be a very pious piece. “Being brought to the scaffold, he took Ronsard’s hymns into his hands, and for his eternal comfort, read out the hymn concerning death, which is a very fine one, and fit to make one less afraid of dying, having no other godly book, nor any minister or confessor.”

Art. Ronsard.

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There is a very remarkable difference between other Historical Dictionaries and mine. I am not contented, according to the custom of those dictionaries, to give a general account of a man’s life; but I collect, as much as the few books I have will permit me, the most curious and remarkable passages, the judgments that have been made of those I speak of, and the faults that have been committed concerning

them. I examine, I prove, I confute, as there is occasion. But when I have no proofs to confute a falsity, I am forced to leave it without a confutation; and my silence, in that respect, is not a sign, that I warrant the truth of the facts mentioned by me. The authors whom I quote, ought to be answerable for what they advance. It is enough for me to confute the falsities that are known to me, and to be always disposed to confute those I shall discover by the help of others, and by my own enquiries. No one can do me a greater pleasure than to impart to me the proofs and explanations that are necessary to rectify the mistakes inserted in this work, upon the credit of authors. I shall always be ready to do whatever justice and truth require. I can be positive about it; I know my own thoughts, and have given some examples of it.—Art. Priolo.

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In all countries where many persons are paid to explain a body of divinity, some will doubtless be so rash as to start questions, which it were better to let alone, as land-marks that divide inheritances. The example of such men is much to be feared; for every body thinks he may do what is done by others, who have not more authority than himself; hence it is, that new disputes never arise more easily, than when they have been lately preceded by many others.

Art. Stancarus.

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It were a difficult thing to foresee what would happen, if the sex that resists should become the aggressor, and if the sex which attacks should stand upon the defensive: the conjectures that may be made upon some few hasty advances of the fair sex, which have proved unsuccessful, cannot be depended upon: it is likely that such advances have oftener succeeded. What is certain is, that men, upon a thousand occasions wherein they stand upon the defensive, betray

a great weakness, make but little resistance, and are basely overcome: though they are convinced that they have been deceived and betrayed, though they are resolved to revenge themselves, though they threaten, and swear they will never see that unfaithful woman; yet some flattering words, some sighs, and one or two tears, will quickly pacify them.

Et quod nunc tute tecum iratus cogitas:
Egone illam? quæ illum? quæ me? quæ non? sine modo?
Mori me malim: sentiet qui vir siem.
Haec verba me hercule una falsa lacrimula,
Quam oculos terendo misere vix vi expresserit,
Restinguet: et te ultro accusabis, et ei dabis
Ultro supplicium.

Terent. Eunuch. Act. I, Scena I.

Being sensible that what is required of them is unjust and shameful, they are resolved not to grant it; but can they refuse it, if it be begged of them with great importunity, and if they mind the craftiness and fawning of a coquet? It is a great mistake to depend upon their resistance: if nature had put them upon the defensive, they would be quickly overcome. It is better that the resisting part should be allotted to women.

Art. Salmacis.

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There were, at that time, some men at Rome, who could write a whole speech in short hand, though the orator spoke never so fast. That art is, at present, better known and practised in England, than in any other country: those who took the pains to write, in that manner, what they heard at the bar, did not always do it out of curiosity, but sometimes out of avarice; they were willing to get some good pieces, to sell them to the booksellers: the authors were sometimes the worse for it; for they saw that the writer had forgotten some good things, and the works

that were thus handed about under their names, were but imperfect pieces.—Art. Quintilian.

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There is another observation that I would make; which is, that we ought much more to mistrust a tradition of slander, than a tradition of praise, when it regards persons who have incurred the public hatred, through the severity of their extortions. There was not one story which people did not believe, in France, when it defamed either cardinal Richelieu, or cardinal Mazarin. A domestic, turned away for very good reasons, a family, chastised very justly, had only to slander their eminencies, and forge whatever they thought fit, and immediately it was believed with all the pleasure in the world, and handed about from one to another. Would an historian act a prudent part to pick up such stories? To be able to do it without just reproach, one must be cotemporary; for then it might be possible to make instructive enquiries; but, at the end of three or four generations, there is no possibility almost of finding out the grounds of uncertain and vulgar reports, which no author of the day thought it worth his while to adopt.—Art. Paul II.

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All men of sense will grant, that there are no collections of greater use than those which can any ways serve to resist two such terrible plagues as the impudence of libellers, and the credulity of those who read their books. It is of great concern for the public good, to make it appear, by many plain instances, that there are no lies which passionate men are not capable of divulging against their neigbours’ honour, and which the people are not capable of believing. It signifies nothing to confute those satirical writers by the absurdity of their stories, and by their contradictions; they persist in their boldness, and new calumniators are no ways daunted thereby. It signifies nothing to make those blush, who have been rash and

simple enough to swallow down a thousand fabulous stories, maliciously and grossly invented; the very next day, they as readily give ear to others: to this kind of writings, we may justly apply these lines:

Mais ils trouvent pourtant, quoi qu’on en puisse dire,
Un marchand pour les vendre, et des sots pour les lire.

Boileau, Satire II, ver. 81.

----------- In spite of all that one can say,
Yet still they find a bookseller to vend them,
And fools besides, to read and to commend them.

Art. Scultetus.

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Schultze, a Lutheran minister, maintained, that the opinion of the Calvinists touching the Eucharist, is the sink of many heresies, and the utmost effort of Satan’s rage, and that one cannot adhere to it without becoming the sworn enemy of God, and without forgetting what he promised to Jesus Christ in his baptism. Now to maintain such a thing as this, is it not a downright fit of madness? I appeal to the Lutheran ministers of the present time; they are a good deal more moderate than their ancestors, and they doubtless see, that the quality of the tenets in which the two protestant communions differ, is not of the same kind which they believed formerly, when the sacramentary war heated their spirits too much, and spread on both sides a flood of defamation. That furious storm being calmed by degrees, they have found out, at last, that the subject of dispute was not of importance. How many things of that nature are discovered by experience? But alas! how little do we profit thereby! There arise very frequent disputes among divines; they are treated as if the fundamentals of religion were concerned, and they do not remember that they treat as a mere trifle now, what their predecessors had looked upon as a debate of the utmost consequence.—Art. Schultze.

Nothing is more pernicious than to use bad arguments against impious persons. The author of Religio Medici observes, “that a man who would confirm himself in his opinions, ought to dispute with such as are not well able to defend themselves, and that every one is not qualified to maintain the truth; there being such as know not the first principles, and suffer themselves to be led by a preposterous zeal: they give occasion to the erroneous to attack some truths, which weak defenders are not able to support. Observe what St Augustine acknowledges concerning disputes, wherein he triumphed over the orthodox. It must not be forgotten, that the most understanding authors choose rather to be silent, than to attack a book which they find too powerful. In this respect, they take that course which a great politician would have pursued, when abuses are so confirmed by long custom, that a magistrate who would attempt a reformation, would but discover his own want of power, and indiscreetly expose his authority. These things were taken into consideration by father Paul, when he was desired to write against the Squittinio della Liberta Veneta.—Art. Socinius.

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Perhaps the world has never seen such a long train of victories and large conquests, as what we read in the history of the Saracens. The idea which a Roman poet formed of a vast domination, takes in but part of their empire. Reason would have them to stop, and not to stop: this seems to be contradictory, and yet it is very true: if they had stopped, they might have been praised for it upon several accounts; but they had been blamed likewise for several reasons; they had been charged with weakness and imprudence. It had been said, that they neither durst nor knew how to improve the occasions which providence put into their hands; and that a little more boldness and courage would have enabled them to conquer the whole

world. They who do great actions, are never secure from such malicious reflections: if it cannot be denied that they have done great things, it will be said, however, that it is a small matter, compared to what another would have done in the like case. The heathens would have called it a censure of Fortune, about the ill choice of those to whom she presents fair opportunities.—Art. Abderamne.

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If the reader find in this work divers prodigies, and divers miraculous traditions, it is not a sign that I would make them pass for true; I fear no accusers on that side; if my intention were such, I would relate but very few of them. I am very sensible that, in that kind of matters, credulity is the source of multiplication, and that there is no better nursery than that; but at last it is abused with so much excess, that all are cured who are not incurable. Credulity is a mother whose own fecundity stifles her, early or late, in the minds of those that make use of their reason; so that it would have been the interest of the Pagans, who had a mind to deify their heroes, to have attributed but few miracles to them; the maxims, “dimidium plus to to,” and “ne quid minis,” were seasonable here. Those who have so much multiplied the holy winding sheets, the images of the holy Virgin, made by St Luke, the hairs of the same saint, the heads of St John Baptist, the pieces of the true cross, and a hundred things of that nature, ought also to think on those two maxims; for, by redoubling the doses, they have diluted their venom, and supplied both the poison and the antidote at one time: “ipsa sibi obstat magnitudo.” The same miracles that could deceive the readers, could also undeceive them; as the same spear wherewith he had wounded Telephus, supplied him with a plaster that perfectly cured the wound.

Give me leave to observe, by the bye, that queen Margaret Valois, and all other ladies who imitate her, perhaps do more harm to the world, by their frequent communions and extreme assiduity in convents and churches, than if they continued in their scandalous course, and grew old in impertinence. They are immortalized by a hundred artful eulogies, which never mention any of their former sins. Is not this to cause those who live in impurity to hope for an unspotted fame, and expect to be loaded with honour, provided, in their decayed and deformed age, they turned devout? And why should they not hope for this glory, after so many examples before their eyes? For it is the common course of loose women to turn devout when no longer able to charm. They are then very constant at sermon and mass, and very liberal to convents; whence it is believed, they shall open the gates of paradise, which had been shut against them, and consequently, young ladies may flatter themselves that their debaucheries will not deprive them either of human glory, which the applauses of monks procure for the dead, or of eternal happiness. What is more pernicious than this security? what can possibly let loose the reins of corrupt nature to a greater degree? The ladies would be terrifled at the apprehensions of an infamous character in future ages, and the torments of hell, if they saw that all, or almost all, the women of pleasure continue hardened in their crimes till death. This fear would prove a bridle, and a power·: ful lesson of wisdom, and by this means, the damnation of some few would prove a remedy against incontinence, and the means of the salvation of a great number.—Art. Usson.

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Let us not forget a very terrible sort of persecution against those who change their religion. They are loaded with defamatory libels! their whole lives are strictly examined; and, if any blemishes can be

found, they are represented to the public with all sorts of artifice, in the most hyperbolical manner. The least slips of youth are never forgiven them. If they have written any private letters, in confidence to their friends, which may injure their reputation, they are published. In a word, for the interest of the cause, and to discredit the authority of the change, no scruple is made to turn into great crimes those very things which would never have deprived them of the esteem and affection of any one person in the world, provided they had not changed their religion.

Art. Weidnerus.

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No disputes are more rancorous than those of opposing scholars. Gruterus having attacked Pareus, the latter quickly published his answer, in 1620, under the title of “Provocatio ad Senatum Criticum pro Plauto et Electis Plautinus.” They grew hotter and hotter, neither was the consideration of the miseries which hung over their heads, by the ruin wherewith the palatinate was threatened, sufficient to inspire them with any degree of moderation: so easily are these philologers and grammarians provoked, and with such difficulty appeased. The long preface which Pareus prefixed to his “Analecta Plautina,” printed at Franckfort, in 1623, is dated in the month of October 1621, and consequently he filled it with gall and fury, just before the desolations happened, which ruined both their universities and their libraries, and reduced their persons to the greatest extremities. Their banishment did not abate this violent humour, for those “Analecta,” printed since their dispersion, are full of gross reproaches against Gruterus. This was nothing but reprisal, for Gruterus had used him after so violent a manner, that no fewer than one hundred and thirty-six cruel reproaches appear in one of his books against Philip Pareus. It was the Jesuit, James Gretserus, who pleased himself in collecting this list. There you will find Pareus called an ass, a

mule, a boar, a ram, a goat, a hog; “stercoreus grammaticalis cellæ inquilinus,” &c.—Art. Pareus.

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We learn, from the History of the Sacred War, one of the political customs of states. We have already seen that the king of Lacedemon, instead of dissuading Philomelus from invading the temple of Delphos, encouraged him to do it, and furnished him with the means of doing it. Only, he so managed the business, that it could not be proved that he had openly espoused the party of Philomelus. He took care that the public authority should not appear in the succours of men and money wherewith he supplied the Phocean general. The success of that enterprize being doubtful, it was certainly a piece of prudence not to expose the glory of Lacedemon by some public steps against the interest of religion: but, because the invasion of that temple was likely to prejudice a nation, which was then the most dreaded by all its neighbours; it was political to favour the impious design of those who had a mind to subdue the oracle of Delphos. Such was the cause of the conduct of the king of Lacedemon. When that design was executed, be pulled off the mask, and joined openly in a league with Philomelus, though he was to have for his enemies, those who declared that they took up arms to set the oracle of Delphos at liberty, and to punish the impiety and sacrilege of the Phoceans. The Athenians and Lacedemonians showed themselves the most ready and zealous to maintain the usurpers of the temple, both during the life of Philomelus, who began to plunder it, and during the administration of his successors, who profaned all its treasures, those ancient and rich monuments of the piety of so many nations and princes. Nevertheless, the cities of Athens and Lacedemon pretended to be very religious. Feasts, vows, and sacrifices were great things amongst them. Woe to any one that

had the boldness to say any thing against the worship of the gods: the greatest philosopher in the world would have run the hazard of his life if he had been so hardy. How comes it therefore to pass, that those two cities supported and made a league with the Phoceans, who were guilty of an impious action and had prophaned and destroyed the greatest object of the devotion of all Greece, and even of the Barbarians? The reason of it is this: the Phoceans could not have been punished for their impiety without letting the glory and power of the Thebans grow more formidable than before. But the political interest of the Athenians and Lacedemonians required that the Thebans should be weakened: therefore, though the interest of religion required that the Phoceans should be punished, it was thought more expedient to support and enter into a confederacy with them against the Thebans, who were the heads of a kind of crusade for the liberty of Apollo. The temporal good of the state has been in all times preferred to religion.

Art. Philomelus.

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If you were obliged to examine some of the controversies in agitation betwixt the Christians and the infidels, would you, to the utmost of your knowledge, represent whatever the last could urge with the greatest force in favour of their opinions? Or would you designedly weaken their arguments, that your readers might meet with nothing to render the victory dubious? You will undoubtedly answer me, that you would do the first of these two things, and that the second is a fraud utterly unworthy of a man of honour, and much less excusable in a servant of God. Wherefore then, are you surprized to see the objections of the infidels represented with all the force which natural reason gives them. You say you would do it yourself, if you were to refute them, and you agree that swerving from this rule is to incur the

guilt of an ignominious fraud. Learn then, not to take all those for prevaricators, who fairly shew the beautiful side of their adversaries’ cause; and if they are obliged to confess that nothing but the Scripture can furnish arms against certain objections of the infidels, and that they recur to it as to the immoveable foundation of their faith, be very well contented with their conduct; for otherwise the world will be apt to distrust you, and to suppose that you endeavour to triumph by the assistance of a train of military stratagems which are inconsistent with the Gospel.

Art. Wechel.

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There is nothing more extraordinary than a great man, who knows how to enjoy his glory in quiet, without aspiring after new dignities. Most of those who arrive to a great height of reputation, and an extensive authority, imprudently aim at mounting yet higher, and by this means expose themselves to some mortifying oppositions, and especially in popular states. Timoleon was wiser: “He never afterwards returned to Corinth,” says Plutarch, “but obliged his wife and children to come to him; he never intermeddled with those troubles which afterwards arose among the Greeks, nor exposed himself to the envy of his fellow-citizens, which most governors and generals have raised by their too great and insatiable desire of honours and authority. He spent the remainder of his days in Sicily, in the happy enjoyment of the fruits of his own labours, the greatest of which was, to see so many cities, and so many thousands of men obliged to him for their happiness.”

Art. Timoleon.

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Catullus and Ovid, whose verses were so impure, lived as they wrote. Their debaucheries with women were excessive. The same may be affirmed of the French poets who composed the “Parnasse Satyrique,”

and of several Italian poets whose poems are very filthy; and this sentence is very true:

Raro moribus exprimit Catonem
Quisquis versibus exprimit Catullum

Cato’s life he rarely follows,
Who in verse writes like Catullus.

But by allowing all this, there is a vast difference betwixt relating debaucheries committed by one’s self, praising, and applauding them, and exhorting the readers to an imitation; and narrating gallant adventures in terms a little too brisk and natural, to enliven the recital, while we condemn or disapprove those actions, and discuss a point of doctrine, or a mythological reflection by phrases which represent impurities. The first of these is utterly inexcusable and infamous, and ought to be severely punished; but the second is perhaps only a piece of wit, and affords no reason to make any inferences prejudicial to the author’s morals.—Art. Vayer.

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Justice requires that an author who publishes the most secret transactions of a monarch’s palace, and relates a thousand infamous crimes committed in its most dark recesses with an uncommon assurance; I say, justice obliges such a writer to inform us how he came to the knowledge of these events; he ought to produce and name his authorities; he must have either original letters or authentic copies; in a word, he must have good proofs for what he advances. If it be objected, that it is not possible to give good proofs for facts of that nature, I answer, that a man ought not therefore to accuse another of such facts in public: he ought to back what he says, at least with the authority of his name; I mean, the title of the book ought to declare its author. But if it be found that the author who names himself, may justly be charged with credulity or with malice, or that he is a declared

enemy to the person defamed, it is then certain that his evidence deserves but little credit. I think I have observed more than once, that the authors of libels do not at all consider what I have just offered; nor, which is worse, are their readers more careful herein than they.—Art. Vergerius.

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Josephus shows no great judgment when he compares the passage through the Red Sea, with the passage through the sea of Pamphylia. He hoped that the miracle of Alexander would make the Greeks believe that of Moses; but he should have feared that the passage through the Red Sea would be ascribed to some natural causes, as that of the sea of Pamphylia was ascribed to the north-wind. If Genebrard had not made use of so severe a censure, we could not blame the remark he made upon these words of Josephus: “The Egyptians were mistaken, they knew not that God had opened that way solely for his people, and not for their persecutors, who followed them only to destroy them.” Josephus should have so much the more abstained from such a parallel, because there was some reason to fear that the Greek philosophers would take advantage of what is observed by the sacred historian, that God caused the sea to go back by a strong wind all that night. They might have said that those two miracles were like one another, and both the effects of the wind. There arose a northwind for Alexander, which drove back the waters of the sea; another wind did the same for Moses. Several historians, to make the conquest of the Macedonian army wonderful, took for a miracle, a north wind, which proved useful to him by chance; the historian of the Hebrews did the like; therefore to prevent those objections, Josephus should have avoided the parallel, which he made use of very improperly.

Art. Phaselus.

Can any thing be more strange than the opinion of the Athenians, otherwise an ingenious and learned nation, concerning the statues of their gods? Did they not fancy that the work of a sculptor became a god as soon as it was consecrated to a deity? Did they not believe that Phidias’s Minerva was the very goddess that sprang out of Jupiter’s head? Doubtless they had such a foolish conceit, otherwise there had been no necessity for Stilpo to use such a distinction as he made to vindicate himself. His crime was this: he asked one day, whether Minerva the daughter of Jupiter, were a god; he was answered that she was. “But,” replied he, “that Minerva is Phidias’s work, and not Jupiter’s daughter, and therefore she is not a god.” Whereupon he was cited before the Areopagites, and did not deny what he had said; he pretended that he had expressed himself exactly: “Minerva,” said he, “is not a god but a goddess, for the gods are males.” It is plain, that if the Pagans had made a real distinction between the statues and the gods to whom they were consecrated, there had been no necessity for Stilpo to allege the difference between a god male and a god female, in order to justify himself.—Art. Stilpo.

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Every age can furnish us with examples of authors who had never thought of writing histories, if personal resentments and temporary passions had not been their motive. They have not patience to stay till their passion is over, which is the least they ought to do, but they write from the first beginning of their resentment. They should remember this fine precept:

Ne frena animo permitte calenti,
Da spatium tenuemque moram: male cuncta ministrat
Impetus....    Stat. Theb. lib. x. v. 697.

Cool first, nor give your angry mind the rein,
For violence, your end will ne’er obtain.

But perhaps they are afraid they should not be able to write, should they stay till their minds are composed. Perhaps they fancy that anger gives them a talent which they had not before.

Si natura negat facit indignatio versum.           Juv. Sat. i.
If nature does not, anger makes us write.

Hence we find their histories so very partial, and that they add their own comments on every action which they relate. They might be taken for judges of the inquisition; they give sentence on every fact; they pronounce it weak and base, &c. why do they not give the reader leave to form this judgment? They ought to confine themselves to a narration which only contains the principles or the premises of reasoning; the reader would draw the conclusion himself, whether it tend to censure or to commend. It is enough therefore to represent facts; sentences of this kind ought to be managed in the same manner as those called maxims; they ought not to show themselves in relievo, but ought to be incorporated in the narration, as has been already observed. There are a great many modern histories in whose titles the epithet critical is wanting; for the authors of them do nothing else but criticise, and sometimes engage in a regular dispute. They relate and refute alternately.

Art. TimÆus.

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Aristotle’s works met with a singular fate. This great philosopher left them, together with his school and his other books, to his disciple Theophrastus. The latter left his library to Neleus, who had been scholar both to him and to Aristotle. Neleus caused it to be removed to Scepsis, and left it to his heirs They being ignorant and illiterate, took no other care of his library than to keep it close shut up; and

being informed how diligently the kings of Pergamum, to whom they were subjects, sought after books, they buried under ground those of Neleus. A long time after this, their posterity took them out of their prison very much damaged by damps and vermin, and sold at a great price those of Aristotle and Theophrastus to one Apellicon, who caused them to be copied, but bis transcribers very ill supplied those places which the worms had eaten or the damps defaced, so that these books did not appear without innumerable faults. After Apellicon’s death, his li-_ brary was carried from Athens to Rome by Sylla. SyIla’s library-keeper permitted Tyrannion, who was a great admirer of Aristotle, to take the writings of that philosopher. The booksellers caused them to be transcribed, but they made use of ignorant people who did not collate their copies with the originals, so that the mischief became greater at Rome than it had been at Athens.—Art. Tyrannion.

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The architect who built Pharos, engraved his own name on a stone, and that of the king on the lime which covered it. The trick was not discovered during his life, nor was he consequently exposed to any manner of danger on that account, no person being able to accuse him to the king as a robber of his glory; but he expected after the expiration of several years, that the name written in the lime would crumble away, and none would remain visible besides his own, which he had fixed in a much more durable substance than lime. The following citation acquaints us with the name of this architect:—“When therefore he had finished the building, he engraved his own name, &cexpecting, as it really happened, that after a short time these letters would crumble away with the lime, and that then the following inscription would appear: ' Sostratus Cnidius, the son of Dexiphanes, erected

this to the gods preservers, in behalf of seafaring men.—Art. Wickham.

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Valerius Maximus, before he gives an account of what be saw in the isle of Cea, relates that “at Marseilles, a poisoning liquor was kept by the public, and given to those who offered satisfactory reasons to the senate why they desired to rid themselves of their lives. The senate examined their reasons with a certain temperament, which neither indulged a passionate and rash inclination to die, nor opposed a reasonable desire of death, whether they wanted to deliver themselves from the persecutions of ill fortune, or would not run the risk of being forsaken by prosperity. This was the rule of the senate; they forced no body to poison himself, but granted a permission to do it when they judged it proper: none could kill himself in the due form, and canonicamente, without being authorized by the sovereign.” The same author adds, “that, in his opinion, this practice at Marseilles was borrowed from Greece; for I have observed,” saith he, " that it is also in use in the isle of Cea.” Upon this he relates, “that going into» Asia with Sextus Pompeius, and passing through the city of Julis, he was present at the death of a lady, aged above ninety years. She had declared to her superiors the reasons which induced her to depart this life; after that, she kept herself ready to drink the poison, and as she thought that Pompey’s presence would add a great lustre to the ceremony, she caused him to be most humbly supplicated to be present. He granted the favour, and with the most press ing instances, eloquently exhorted her to consent to live, but all in vain. She thanked him for his kindness, and prayed that he might be rewarded, not so much by the gods whom she was going to, as by those whom she quitted. She declared, that she had been always favoured by fortune, and would not expose herself to

the reverse of it.—“Ceterum ipsa hilarem fortunæ vultum semper experta, ne aviditate lucis tristem intueri cogar; reliquias spiritus mei prospero fine, duas filias et septem nepotum gregem superstitem relictura, permuto.” She left two daughters and seven grandchildren, and having exhorted them to a mutual agreement and concord, &c. with an undaunted courage, she took the glass which contained the poison, and after recommending herself to Mercury to obtain a happy and successful passage, she greedily drank off the mortal liquor. “Cohortata deinde ad concordiam suos, distributo eis patrimonio, et cultu suo sacrisque domesticis majori filiae traditis: poculum, in quo venenum temperatum erat, constanti dextra arripuit. Tum defusis Mercurio delibamentis, et invocato numine ejus, ut se placido itinere in meliorem sedis infernae deduceret partem; cupido haustu mortiferam traxit potionem.” I omit the rest of the relation, and would not have cited so much, had it not been very rare to find in the heathen writers the manner of their recommending themselves to the gods at the point of death. I do not remember to have ever observed that they asked the pardon of their sins. Nor do we see that this lady of the isle of Cea put up such a petition. Let us observe, by the way, that the heathens less admired those who killed themselves in their misfortunes, than those who did so, when they were under prosperous circumstances, and only in order to escape the inconstancies of fate. A man was no sooner prepossessed with the maxims of the Stoics, than he looked upon those as cowards who were fond of life during bodily infirmities or disgraceful misfortunes. In such cases, death was accounted the only remedy which one ought to have recourse to without murmuring or complaining, and it was pretended that none but those who loved life, would accuse the gods and men. Otho, when dying, made use of this maxim. “Plura <le extremis loqui, pars ignaviae est: præcipuum destinationis meæ documentum habete, quod de nemine queror; nam incusare deos vel homines, ejus est, qui vivere velit.—To say much of death is an indication of cowardice. I die with this resolution, to complain of nobody: for to accuse the gods or men, is the part of a man who desires to live.”—Art. Zia.

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The Siamese are persuaded that there is a fatal, immutable, and necessary connexion between virtue and happiness, and between vice and misery, which doctrine should be a more powerful inducement to virtue among them, than religion is in other countries. They should apply themselves to virtue in order to be happy, as they have recourse to food, when they are hungry; and they should depart from vice to avoid misery, as they keep off from the fire when they are afraid of being burnt. But then their morals would be wholly mercenary; the pure notions of honesty would not be their principle. I must observe, by the by, that it is very strange they should believe what is told of them concerning that fatal connexion. Is there no man among them that grows rich by unlawful means, or is poor without being accounted vicious, or that is wounded by endeavouring to save another man’s life? I fancy, if they were pressed hard upon this head, they would come off with some stoical notions, viz. that diseases, vexation, and poverty, are no evils, and that riches, pleasure, and health, are not good things. I can easily believe that the common people do not follow that opinion of a natural sympathy between virtue and happiness, and between vice and misery; and that it is only a doctrine of their men of letters, who have denied a providence, and nevertheless were sensible that it is useful to preserve the common opinion concerning rewards and punishments.

Art. Somonocodom.

Plotinus would never suffer his picture to be drawn. Amelius, his disciple, desired it of him, but it was in vain: “is it not enough,” answered he, “to drag every where with us that image in which we have been shut up by nature: do you think that we must, also transmit to future ages an image of that image, as an object worthy of their attention?” Madame des Houlieres has made some admirable verses upon the vanity which induces men to have their pictures drawn. The elevation and depth of her morality is incomparable; a lady who thinks so nobly should have lived in the age of Plotinus; our’s was not worthy of her: the men of this age have too mean souls; they set too great a value upon the body, and the goods of fortune. There are no Plotinuses now-a-days. Madame des Houlieres herself has yielded to the temptation of having her picture drawn. She was pleased to see herself grown young again by the pencil of Cheron, and to think that she would not be unknown in that respect when she ceased to be. Perhaps it will be said, that to grow young again in a picture and in effigy is a very small thing, and that to rejoice at this thought, that future ages will not be ignorant that one has been young and beautiful, is to content one’s-self with a very chimerical honour. But who knows that better than the lady whom I speak of? Is it not thence that she takes the nicest part of her reflexion? I shall quote the last verses of her poem:

     Hé, comment pourrois-je prétendre
De guerir les mortels de cette vieille erreur,
   Qu’ils aiment jusqu’i la fureur,
Si moi qui la condamne ai peine à m’en défendre?
Ce portrait dont Apelle auroit été jaloux,
Me remplit malgré moi de la flatteuse attente
Que je ne saurois voir dans autrui sans courroux,
   Faible raison que l’homme vante!
Voilà quel est le fond qu’on peut faire sur vous:

Toûjours vains, toûjours faux, toûjours pleins d’injustices,
   Nous crions dans tous nos discours
Contre les passions, les faiblesses, les vices,
   Oû nous succombons tous les jours.

Alas for how should I remove
   This old and darling error of mankind,
Since, hardly free from what I disapprove,
   In spite of my philosophy I find,
That this fair picture, which if he had known,
Apelles would have jealous grown,
   Presents a pleasing hope unto my view,
Which I with anger in another see;
  Weak reason, empty boast, adieu.
Such is the confidence repos’d in thee!

Art. Plotinus.

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Spondanus justly says, that it was very scandalous for Henry II to employ a protestant minister, who had formerly been a bishop. If Vergerius had been in France, that prince would have caused him to be burnt, and yet he caressed him in a foreign country, employed him against the pope; and made use of his craft and artifice to overthrow the council, and probably rewarded him for all these good actions. Doth not this plainly discover the genius of sovereign princes? Their conduct towards heretics is not of a piece, they persecute them in one place, and encourage them in another. Their conduct is void of all principle, or rather is uniformly directed by the maxim, that all things ought to be sacrificed to the temporal glory of the state, which requires that a jealous neighbour should be crossed by all possible means, on all occasions.—Art. Vergerius.

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The other poets almost unanimously agreed in their great value and love for Virgil. This is a great eulogy, which commands my admiration for Virgil more than the beauty of his works, or the excellency of his muse. He exceeded all the poets, and yet they loved him. Certainly nothing can be more extraordinary

than this; and if the author who relates it had not prepared the way by describing Virgil’s amiable character, he never could have prevailed on us to believe it. He represents him as endowed with a great dea| of goodness; he says, that he was extremely careful to cultivate the acquaintance of honest and learned men, and to acknowledge their merit, without either envying or blaming any person. All he had was at the service of his friends: a fine thought in the writings of other men pleased him as much as if he had been the author of it; and he was never concerned at being robbed of the glory of his performances, or that another claimed them for his, and reaped the advantage of them.—Art. Virgil.

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If any one should ever think of reducing all the lists of poor learned men, which we find in several places, into a universal catalogue, it would swell to a very large book; and the poets would take up more room than all other authors, if we either regard their accounts of themselves, or the truth of the fact. The general conclusion is, that the age is very ungrateful and unjust, to suffer so many men to be afflicted with poverty, who deserve so well to be rewarded, and to enjoy the conveniences of life. But it is certain that those who talk thus are very often in the wrong; for there are several poets, whose poverty is only to be ascribed to their too great neglect of their domestic affairs, and not knowing how to husband the favours which they receive. Those who apply themselves wholly to the muses, can scarce think of any thing else; and find so many charming engagements in the composition of a poem, that they cannot take off their thoughts, even when their domestic interest requires them to be employed in something else, than the composing an ode.—Art.Tristan.

Monks have not so much leisure as is imagined;

the choir and breviary rob the studious of a great deal of time; and if any of them distinguishes himself by learning or piety, he is loaded with confessions. He cannot exempt himself from the direction of consciences, which frequently draws him from his study; he is obliged to give audience to a thousand devout women, whose scruples often are very ridiculous and very odd. I find in a tract published in the year 1625, that “Cardinal Bellarmin, of pious memory, frequently said to the most illustrious Cardinal de la Rochefoucault,'Monsignore veremente ci sono troppo Christiani al mondo.’ ” I assure you that I am crowded with people and visits; and must own that I think there are too many “Christians in the world.”—Art. Usher.

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An error committed in the supplement to Moreri’s Dictionary is one of the most enormous that can be seen any where. “It was by express order of Herman, that Cardinal John Gropper was strangled with his hatband for endeavouring to oppose this new religion,” are the words of the supplement. It would be very difficult to form probable conjectures concerning this horrible falsity, if the author had not cited Beza; but when we consult the place he points at, we find what was the occasion of his mistake, and then our surprize continues, and, what is more, increases. Beza compares our Herman to Jesus Christ, and John Gropper to Judas. He pretends that Gropper betrayed his master, and obtained for a recompense, a string which strangled him, that is to say, a Cardinal’s hat. “Tu vero haud secus quam olim à Juda Christus a tuo Joanne Groppero proditus quum esses, retulit quidem hic quoque proditor stipendium peccati mortem Cardinalitii Galeri vinculis strangulatus.” It would be infinitely more excusable to say with Father Maimbourg, that Beza childishly aiming at wit, made a wretched dull jest,

than to find in these words an execrable crime of the archbishop of Cologne. “A silly fool,” says De Remond, “taking Beza’s words in their literal signification, wanted to persuade me, that Gropper had made a halter of his hat-band, and strangled himself with his own hand: whereas Beza only means that his strong inclination for a Cardinal’s hat had taken away his speech from him, which he would otherwise have employed in the defence of Lutheranism.” Who could have imagined that such a plain metaphor as this would occasion such groundless and ridiculous fancies.—Art. Vida.

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Tulenus, a learned man, in the reign of Henry II, had been preceptor to the Cardinal, and to the Admiral de Chatillon. He was affected with a sort of folly which did not prejudice his reason and judgment in any thing else but his amorous passion for a certain princess, which miserably distracted him; of which Pasquier, an eye-witness, relates some circumstances. Proposing some objections against the common opinion of physicians, that the judgment, imagination, and memory, are three faculties which are lodged in three separate ventricles of the brain, he saith, that the distinction of the three ventricles is insufficient, and that the ventricle of judgment, and that of memory, ought to be subdivided as often as either of them acts differently in us. And to prove these different operations, he observes, that in the reign of Francis I, “One Villemanoche resided at court, whose judgment never appeared touched on any other account than his expecting to marry ladies of great quality; and after him,” continues he, “Tulenus a learned man whose judgment was en­

tire in every thing else but a passion, which he had ridiculously vowed to one of the first princesses of France, who was dead. With this person I once diverted myself at my own table, when several men of

honour, who were strangers and not in the least acquainted with him, were present. He entertained us    till the middle of our dinner with an infinite variety of learned and judicious discourse, to the admiration of all who heard him. At last, believing I had sufficiently prejudiced the company in his favour, and that it was now time to make the good old man play another part, I took occasion, seemingly by accident, to speak of this princess; after which, quitting his amble he immediately began to trot, relating an incoherent crowd of follies, concerning the good and illtreatment he had met with from her. The company unable to perceive whence this sudden change proceeded, could not tell what to think of him, he having before talked so wittily and learnedly. But after he was gone, I at large acquainted them with the reason of the alteration of his brain. Besides what I have related, it was observed of him, that the judging part being wounded on this subject, had also affected the imaginative so much, that at the first sight of any young lady whom he met with, he was persuaded it was his Julia, (as he called his pretended mistress in Latin, and Jolivette in French) and guided by this foolish imagination, he sometimes walked in his gown and square-cap as far as Fontainebleau, persuading himself that she hid herself there. I relate nothing concerning him but what I have seen or heard of him.” This example confirms what we have seen in another place, that some persons lose common sense with regard to some things, who nevertheless by the rest of their conduct plainly convince us that their sense, knowledge, and reason, are entire and in a flourishing condition.

Art. Tulenus.

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We can never too often represent the villany and injustice annexed to the profession of inquisitor; wherefore I shall here give a short account of that

man’s conduct, who exercised that office in the dioceses of the two Vergerios. His name was Annibal Grison. He entered the houses of the inhabitants to search for suspicious books; he excommunicated those who did not detect the persons that appeared to them suspected of Lutheranism; he promised to mitigate the punishment of those who should renounce their heresy, and apply to him to ask pardon; but he threatened those with fire, who did not prevent their accusers by an humble confession of their crime. He denounced his threats from door to door, and spread terror every where. Some accused themselves: he severely censured those, who had read the bible in the vulgar language, and forbad their continuance in that crime. Soon after nothing was seen but accusations, every one engaged in them without regard to the laws of consanguinity or gratitude. The wife did not spare her husband, the son his father, nor the client his patron; several persons were brought into trouble for trifles, such, for example, as had only ventured to speak against the bigotry of others. On a solemn day this inquisitor celebrated mass in the cathedral of Capo d’lstria, and told the people: “of late years you have lain under many calamities; your olive-trees as well as your corn-fields and vineyards have been barren; your cattle have been afflicted with distempers. Your bishop and other heretics have exposed you to these evils. Do not expect any relief, unless you suppress those heretics, and what have you now to do but to fall upon, and stone them immediately.”

Art. Vergerius.

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The heretics called Turlupins went naked. We cannot sufficiently wonder that such a whimsical fancy should be so often renewed amongst Christians; paganism affords us only the sect of Cynics, who fell into this impudent practice; and it must

also be observed that this sect was not numerous, and that the greatest part of the Cynics did not discover their nudity, or do what is consequent upon it, as it was said of Diogenes. The Indian Gymnosophists were not naked in those parts which the Adamites, Turlupins, Picards, and several Anabaptists discovered. We ought then to grant, that in that respect, the Christians have been more irregular than the Pagans. We shall not be surprised at this, when we observe, that a gospel principle of which the Pagans were ignorant, is liable to this abuse: I mean, that the second Adam came to repair the evil which the first had introduced into the world. Hence a fanatic ventures to conclude, that those who are once partakers of the benefits of the covenant of grace, are perfectly restored to the state of Adam and Eve. I own, that fanaticism must be carried to a high pitch, and the dose must be very large, which is able to overcome the impressions of modesty, which nature, and a Christian education have stamped on us: but what is not the infinite combination of our passions, imaginations, animal spirits, &c. capable of doing?—Art. Turlupins.

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The world hath always been, and is at present full of persons who declaim against vice, and are themselves very immoral, who are grave and severe in their books, and very loose in their conduct. We should therefore be finely deceived, if we judged of their morals by their writings. But may we not justly say by the rule of contraries, that there are some persons whose morals are stricter than their writings? Yes, I believe we may: but it more rarely happens that an author allows himself a large liberty in his writings, and but a little in his manners, than that he indulges himself with a large scope in his manners, and takes but a very little freedom in his books. The reason of this difference is very obvious;

for he that can perform the most, can also perform the least, but he who is capable of performing the least cannot perform the most. What is more easy than to declaim in verse or prose against the irregularities of the age, and what is more difficult than to avoid sharing some part of them? A wise man therefore will perform the hardest task; which is not very difficult for him to instruct by the productions of his pen, for this is infinitely the easier of the two. It doth not follow, that a man who can write very edifying and religious books, clean and free from all immorality, can live as regularly. This is considerably harder than the other.—Art. Vayen.

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Maldonatus observes, that Calvinism having once shaken off the yoke of tradition with regard to the real presence, under pretence that it is an opinion clogged with a thousand difficulties contrary to sense and reason, hath put all sorts of heretics in the way of rejecting the mysteries; and that some of the most subtle and incredulous Calvinists have made use of the same arguments to deny the Trinity, which they had formerly used against Transubstantiation. Some, adds he, advance farther, even so far as to believe nothing, and the road they have got into must necessarily lead them so far. He goes on thus: “what I have observed is not designed to injure the Calvinists, but to shew them the precipice that is at their journey’s end, that a view of this imminent danger may divert them from the way of perdition.” Two things in this common-place of Maldonatus deserve to be censured; for, in the first place, to grant that preferring the light of reason to the authority of those councils, which have determined the real presence, leads to Atheism, is giving too great an advantage, to Libertines and Free-thinkers. Is it not avowing that the doctrine of the existence of God is not less contrary to common sense than that of

transubstantiation? Is it not asserting, that to believe this existence, we ought blindly to sacrifice the clearest light of philosophy to the authority of tradition; as we ought to sacrifice it to the same authority, in order to believe the Romish opinion concerning the Eucharist? But what can be more pernicious to religion than such an avowal? It is therefore very necessary to limit this objection. He ought only to have said that such a breach being made in the decisions of the councils by denying the real presence, may grow so wide, as to extend to other incomprehensible opinions of the church of Rome.

Art. VALLÉ.

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Those who advance new hypotheses are too zealous to maintain them, to the prejudice of the peace, and of the ecclesiastical and academical tranquillity. They may be orthodox; but they have not prudence enough: they are guilty of rashness, for it is a piece of rashness to disturb the public peace without a great and urgent necessity. Those again who oppose a new method of teaching, appear too passionate: I am apt to believe, that sometimes there is nothing personal that directs their proceedings; but they overdo things; they alarm the whole church for trifles; they make people afraid of a total depravation of the confession of faith, when there is yet no attempt against it. They are zealous, but they are neither moderate, nor charitable, nor equitable. Nay, they are as imprudent as their adversaries: they do not observe that a new method, of which no notice seems to be taken, falls of itself, whereas if it be opposed earnestly, it degenerates into a party. The new methodist will have some relations in the government, that will maintain him with all their clients; and thus you will soon see the combination of the civil and canon law, and the factions of the church and state matched together. What may not one fear of

such a conflict? How many evils would religion and the state avoid, if people were content to oppose fundamental innovations only.—Art. Altingius.

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Some writings came out in Holland a short time ago, about the rights of an erroneous conscience; wherein it is proved in such a demonstrative manner, that every action committed against the light of conscience, is essentially evil, and must necessarily and indispensably be avoided; that those who had a mind to oppose the doctrine, fell into this dreadful opinion: “that a man must not always act according to the light of his conscience.” Hence it follows, that a man sometimes performs a good action, in acting against the light of his conscience—a monstrous doctrine, that overthrows all morality, and in comparison of which, the rankest Probabilism is an; innocent opinion. It is remarkable, that the fanatics who have thrown themselves upon that precipice, are more concerned than any body else to assert the rights of conscience.—Art. Ailli.  

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Thuanus relates, “That Elias, Vinetus received letters every year from Buchanan, by Scotch merchants, who came to load wine at Bourdeaux. Vinetus showed these letters to Thuanus, who observed a great deal of courage in the last, though it was written with a trembling hand. Buchanan complained therein, not so much of the inconveniences of old age, as of the weariness of his long life. “De senectutis incommodis non tam querebatur, quam de vitæ longioris tædio.” He said, that he had left the court, and was retired to Stirling, where he endeavoured only one thing, which was, to shake off the company of those who were not like himself, with as little noise as possible. He meant the living, looking upon himself as dead. His greatest enemies cannot deny but that he was in his life, once, at

least, a philosopher, for such sentiments as these would not be disowned either by the stoics or by the brachmans, unless perhaps in regard of some small accessories.—Art. Buchanan.

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In a civil war, the king’s party usually acts with more boldness and confidence than the other: for the rebellious party finding itself odious, will not begin the breach of military discipline, the violation of a capitulation, slaughters in cold blood against the public faith, &c. It is the prince’s party that gives itself more liberty, in that respect, pretending to have only to do with people convicted of felony, and actually condemned to the worst of punishments: it seldom makes a fair war, but when the other party resolves to use reprisals.—Art. Beaumont.

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Some writers have endeavoured to shew a good intelligence between Plato and Aristotle. This is to trifle with the readers, or to turn into ridicule those whom they endeavour to reconcile, without designing to do it. Such a piece is shameful to both parties; and the mediators might feat some cruel reproaches, if they, who occasioned the quarrel, should return into the world. They would say, “what, do you pretend that this is only a dispute about words, and that we agree on the same doctrines without perceiving it; because we are prepossessed with passion, which hinders us from knowing what we say? This is a satire all over, we will have no peace on such ignominious conditions; go your ways with your projects of re-union; we had rather continue the war, than see it end to the shame of our understandings and learning.—Art. Aureolus.

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I think that a layman, who writes the history of

a country, or the relation of his travels, is not obliged to be silent about a public custom, under pretence, that it is ridiculous, obscene, and of an ill example. If you lay down a contrary maxim, it will necessarily follow, that the labour of historians is bad, and that their profession ought to be placed among the unlawful and pernicious arts; for it is impossible to write history, without relating infamous and abominable actions. Let us remember, that the most rigid critics do not blame the historians, who mention all the particulars of a villainous murder, or of a horrid treason; and that they would not blame those, who should truly say, that, in some towns, they choose for their burgomasters, those who have practised such and such brutish ways of making themselves drunk, that unless a man has been able to bear such a trial, he is not made a consul, &c. They only condemn the relations, which mention some customs contrary to chastity: for example; they would condemn a writer, who should give the particulars of the practice of the Congress, which has been at last so wisely abolished by the parliament of Paris; and they do not consider that their criticisms fall upon the ancient fathers, who very ingenuously represented the horrid impurities practised among the Pagans and heretics.

Art. F. Blondel.

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Berquin was accused of condemning the custom that preachers have of invoking the Holy Virgin, instead of invoking the Holy Ghost. It is said, that he did not approve that the Holy Virgin should be called the fountain of grace, and that in the eveningsong, she should be called our hope and life. He said, that was more suitable to Jesus Christ, and that the Scripture does not favour the modern usage. These are the trifles, for which he was imprisoned, and put in danger of being treated as a heretic. I

do not wonder so much that Erasmus called it a trifle, as, to see that Berquin was acquitted.

Art. Berquin.

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Many enemies wrote against Balzac. The chancellor Seguier having prevented the publication of a book that was composed against him, in 1636, received a little while after a letter from that author, wherein the following words are found: “So long as there are none but these pen-gladiators that present themselves to appear in print, be not sparing of the prince’s favour, and abate a little of your severity. If it were a new thing, it may be I should not be displeased with the suppression of the first libel that should abuse me, but now that there are enough of them to make a small library, I am almost well pleased to see the number increased, and I take delight in raising a heap of stones that envy has cast at me without doing me any harm.”—Art. Balzac.

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Since, according to theology, all beasts are free from sin, it cannot be said that some are grown disorderly for a punishment of their faults, and that others have been kept in a regular course for a reward of their good-works. So that whatever they do is equally regular; and if any one should ask you, as Sigismund’s widow did, “why will you rather have me imitate the turtle-dove, than the pigeon or the sparrow?” You can give no good answer, unless you consult the grounds of morality, which you would be obliged to consult, if you did not make use of the example of the turtle-dove.

Art. Barbara.

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Artemidorus in treating of dreams, made choice of a very trifling subject. If our own experience be not sufficient to convince us, that, generally speaking, there is nothing more confused, than the ideas,

which we call dreams, we need only consider this author’s own maxims, to be persuaded, that his art does not deserve the attention of a wise man. There is no dream, which Artemidorus has explained, but will bear a quite different interpretation, with the same probability, and with, at least, as natural resemblances, as those on which that interpreter proceeds. I say nothing of the injury done to intelligences, to whose; direction we must necessarily impute our dreams, if we expect to find in them any presage of futurity. What a way of instructing do we ascribe to them! How unworthy of their knowledge and gravity, and, in a word, of such beings as they are! If they cannot instruct us better, how great is their ignorance! And if they will not, how great is their malice! Might not one complain, a thousand times, of his good angels, as well as of his evil genius, in the words of Æneas,

Quid natum toties crudelis tu quoque falsis
Ludis imaginibus?

Ah, cruel mother, such deceits to use,
And with delusive forms thy son abuse!

What I am most surprised at, is, that Artemidorus should take so much pains to establish a doctrine, which might give him such vexation: for must he not be afraid of dreaming, what his art might represent to him as ominous? He had found, by his studies, that, when a traveller dreams he has lost the key of his house, it is a sign that somebody has debauched his daughter. If Artemidorus had dreamed such a dream, while he was abroad, would he not have believed there was a fine trade driving at home? Could this knowledge have been agreeable to him? Or had he not much better have been without it? He tells us, that, having dreamed, his wife had insulted him, he was much troubled the next day, when he perceived a man coming towards him, who was not

his friend. Observe how, by virtue of his onirocrisy, he turned an imaginary evil into a real one.

Art. Artemidorus.

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Every body fancies that the truths of his religion are so plain, that ingenious men of another party do not fail to see them, and that nothing but human considerations hinder them from making an open profession of them. So that we flatter ourselves, that at the approaches of the fatal hour, wherein the lot of eternity strikes the mind more strongly, those dissemblers give glory to truth, and throw off the mask.

Nam verse voces turn demum pectore ab imo
Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona, manet res.

It is from that ill principle that so many stories are inserted in Moreri’s Dictionary concerning Peter du Moulin, Joseph Scaliger, &c. It is also the source of I know not how many discourses, wherein they make certain persons say: “The religion which I profess is better than the other for this world, but not at the point of death.”—Art. Abulpharagius.

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Authors at present leave the trouble of alphabetical indexes to others; and it must be owned that they who are not laborious, and whose talent lies in a great warmth of imagination, are in the right to let others compose the indexes of their works; but a man of judgment and labour will succeed in making tables to his own writings much better than a stranger. There ate a hundred good advices to be given upon the making those tables, nor are they mistaken who look on them as the soul of books.—Art. Antonio.

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The way that Thuanus has taken to praise George Buchanan is admirable: nothing could better give a great idea of this Scotchman’s mind. “His History of Scotland,” says he, “does not seem to be the work

of a man who taught a school, but that of a person employed all his life-time in the most important affairs of state. The meanness of his condition and fortune did not hinder Buchanan from judging well of the greatest matters, and writing of them with much prudence. He was one of those extraordinary men, who have the happiness not to become pedants among the occupations of the school.”—Art. Buchanan.

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The more we consider the inevitable consequences of war, the more we shall detest those who are the causes of it. Corbulo reduced a great and fine city to ashes, and made an infinite number of women, children, and old men miserable, who never did him any injury. Enquire of those who understand the trade of war best, whether he did well: they will tell you he did very well; and that, had he not acted so, he must have been esteemed a very weak general for the reasons alleged by Tacitus. “Artaxatis ignis immissus deletaque et solo aequata sunt, quia nec teneri sine valido praesidio ob magnitudinem moenium, nec id nobis virium erat, quod firmando praesidio et capessendo bello divideretur, vel si integra et incustodita relinqueretur, nulla in eo utilitas aut gloria quod capta essent. Tacit. Ann. lib. 13, cap. 41. ³⁶—Artaxata was burnt down, and razed to the ground, because so large a city could not be defended without a strong garrison, which was not to be spared out of an army, but just sufficient for carrying on the war, and to leave it entire and ungarrisoned, would have been throwing away both the honour and benefit of taking it” The insults which a general suffers, when he leaves his conquests without putting them out of a condition to hurt him, or keeps them to the too great weakening of his army, make him so despicable, that, to maintain his reputation, one of the main springs of war, he must give occasion to

no such insults. So that it is by a fatal and an unhappy necessity, that the hard laws of war oblige us to deprive an enemy of that which can be of no advantage to ourselves.—Art. Artaxata.

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All courageous women are not like Agrippina, who overcame the infirmities of her own sex by employing herself in the occupations of the other. Semiramis, who was ambitious and warlike to the highest degree, was lascivious to the utmost. It is observed, that your great warriors are for the most part of an amorous complexion, for which the mystical humanists may honour Homer, who has so naturally set forth the union of Mars and Venus; but I believe this is not so common in regard to women, and that great affairs raise them above love intrigues.

Art. Agrippina.

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John Michael Brutus exclaims against the reigning vanity among the meanest private persons, of expecting, in the addresses of letters, and in public acts the title of “magnifici, clarissimi, atque amplissimi,” and the necessity of having recourse to the substantives, majesty, highness, &c., in speaking to kings and princes. He adds, “that on pretence that the title of excellency was abased by having been bestowed on physicians and lawyers, the lord of a small state had used so many arguments and entreaties with the pope, that at last he had granted him the title of highness. He was, however, inexorable with regard to a small republic, which desired the title of serenity. Things are strangely altered for the worse since the death of John Michael Brutus. Such a title as would have satisfied the most excessive vanity in the year 1582, is at present an intolerable burden, of which people endeavour to be delivered by the acquisition of some more pompous and sublime expression.

Art. J. M. Brutus.

I believe also, that when M. Jurien began to meditate on that subject, he did not very well know the nature of moral demonstrations. He formed too great an idea of them, and that was, probably, the reason why he durst not say that the proofs of the divinity of the Scripture amounted to such a high degree of evidence. If he had known the true nature of that kind of demonstration, he would have less exposed himself. A moral demonstration does not lie like geometrical demonstrations, in an indivisible point; it has a wider compass, and extends from a great probability to a very great probability. These are its bounds, and, consequently, there is a long way to go from the place where our proofs begin to become a moral demonstration, to the place where they begin to be called a physical, metaphysical, or geometrical demonstration.—Art. Beaulieu.

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Boccalini supposes that Bonfadius’s complaints, coming out of the flames, were rejected by Apollo, and that the god of Parnassus declared to him, that though he had been innocent of the crime imputed to him, he would have been justly punished for having had the folly to blemish the honour of some potent families. It was represented to him, that a judicious historian imitates the grape-gatherers and gardeners; he forbears to speak of things before time has ripened them, that is to say, till the persons who have committed an ill action are dead, and their children are not able to revenge themselves on him that publishes it. Tacitus was instanced to him, who used the like precaution, and chose rather to offend against the laws of history, than to expose himself to danger. Thus, a man knows the maxims of prudence better than he can practise them, for Boccalini lost his life for having spoken too freely against Spain. The counsels which he ascribes to Apollo are, doubtless, very judicious. Nothing can be finer in the theory than the

ideas of the legislator of historians; he commands them not to dare to say any thing that is false, and to be bold to say all that is true. But they are as impracticable laws as those of the Decalogue, in the state that mankind is in. If it were proper to compare human things with divine, it might be said that the legislator of the historians has imitated the legislator of the Jews: he supposed a state of innocency, and not a state of sin; he supposed that free-will which is lost, and the great strength that man would have had, if he had persevered in his original innocence. Observe, on the other hand, a great difference between these laws that are so alike. A perfect wisdom is requisite to fulfil the decalogue, and a man must be foolish to the highest degree to fulfil the laws of history. Eternal life is the reward of obedience to the decalogue; but temporal death has been almost an unavoidable consequence of obeying the law-giver of the historians.

Art. Bonfadius.

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Calvin, Beza, and several others, were persuaded, that all those who had at first favoured the reformation, either by endeavouring to mollify the minds of the persecutors, or by shewing an extreme desire to see the evils of the church at an end, were as many apostates and traitors to their consciences, if they continued in the communion of Rome, and if they changed their behaviour towards the reformed. They were too hasty in their judgment. To believe that the church stands in need of reformation, and to approve a certain manner of reforming it, are two very different things. To blame the conduct of those that oppose themselves against a reformation,· and to disapprove the conduct of those that reform, are two very compatible things. So that Erasmus may be imitated without being an apostate, or a perfidious man: without sinning against the Holy Ghost; without betraying

the lights of one’s conscience; and this is what, it seems, Beza did not understand. He imagined, that all those who agreed that Calvin and Luther were in the right in many things, were, from that time forward, fully persuaded that they ought to break with the church of Rome, and raise altar against altar, break and cast down images, and not so much as stop at the sight of the streams of blood that were going to be spilt. It is an illusion. Doubtless, there were many persons who believed, that since the reformation met with so many obstacles, that would put Europe into the utmost desolation, God shewed that the time of reforming was not yet come. Many persons will be always conceited with this principle, that it is a lesser evil to tolerate the abuses of the commonwealth and church, than to endeavour to heal them by remedies that overturn the government. All persons free from prejudice will grant, that we cannot be too cautious in accusing others of sinning against their consciences.—Art. Castellan.

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Those who desire to have a great many scholars, ought to apply themselves wholly to their profession, or to take care that nobody should know that they mind other things. A philologist who sets up for a philosopher, and who loves physical experiments, runs the hazard of losing all his scholars. A physician fond of medals, mathematics, and genealogies, must not expect to have a great many patients, which was the reason Dr Spon thought fit to acquaint the public, that the world would be very much mistaken to think that he made the monuments of antiquity his chief study. He found by experience that this opinion was very prejudicial to him as to the practice of physic; besides, it is certain, that a professor who is known to write many books, is not looked upon as a man fit to improve his scholars, and therefore those

who desire to grow rich by teaching youth, will not succeed if they set up for authors.

Art. Andronicus.

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If any body should ask me why Agrippa speaks harder of Luther in his book of the Vanity of Sciences, than in his Letters, I shall not answer that it is a work wherein he proposes to himself to criticise every body, I would rather make use of another reason. When he composed that treatise, it is likely he had lost the hopes he had at first conceived of Luther. I believe, that at the beginning, he as well as Erasmus, looked upon that reformer as a hero, who could put a stop to the tyranny which the mendicant friars and the rest of the clergy exercised on the minds and consciences of men. Being ignorant and voluptuous, they fomented a thousand mean superstitions, and could not suffer that any body should study good literature; they would neither come out of the barbarity, nor suffer others to leave it; so that, whoever was a fine wit, a learned and polite man, became the object of their violent declamations. Agrippa, Erasmus, and some other men of great genius, were glad that Luther had broken the ice; and expected a crisis from it that should deliver good people from oppression; but when they saw that things did not take such a course as they would have, they were the first to cast a stone at Luther.

Art. Corn. Agrippa.

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The Pagans consulted divers oracles on the same case, to see whether the gods would contradict each other, and to take their measures the better by comparing their answers; thus their gods were as chimerical as the divinity of Spinoza; for it is as impossible that a limited nature should be God, as it is impossible that the world should be the Supreme Being that governs all things by a wise providence. Let us confirm what I advance on the false idea that

the Pagans formed to themselves of God. They were not scandalized at the different fate that the victims had; those that were offered to one divinity caused hopes, while those that were offered to another caused fears. Apollo and Diana, twins of Jupiter, contradicted themselves sometimes; the brother rejected one offering, the sister admitted it: paganism found nothing scandalous in this. The heathens might have desired a greater concord in the promises of good things, but they did not believe that the Divine Nature was free from ignorance, caprices, and discord, so that acquiesced in the uncertainty as the unavoidable effect of the nature of things.—Art. Agesipolis.

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It is no rare thing for zealots to allow a book and its author to be a long time quiet, let the book be what it will, provided that book does not personally attack those zealots. But even after ten, fifteen, twenty years, they will quarrel with the author if some new work come out, containing descriptions that discover what they carefully endeavour to conceal from the people. The first book then becomes heretical, impious, fit to be burnt; and they begin to be eaten up with the zeal of the house of God. Good people sometimes believe them; but those that are no dupes well perceive what shameful passions they cover under the fair mask of the interest of piety.—Art. Alesius.

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The study of critical learning is fallen; men have applied themselves to the reasoning part; they have . improved their minds much more than their memory; they were desirous to think nicely, and to express themselves politely. That application does not produce those great volumes that impose upon the public, and raise a man to a great reputation, but it really creates more light, and a capacity more valuable than the great learning of the grammarians, or of the philologers.—Art. Alesius.

Bonfadius promised to inform his friends how he found himself in the other world; he is not the only one who has made such promises. These are his words: “Se da quel mondo di là si potrà dar qualche segno senza spavento, lo faro.” They are taken out of the note that he sent to Giovanni Battista Grimaldi; you will find it entire in the Antibaillet. The Barnabite Baranzanus had made the same promise, and did not perform it; it is also pretended that Marcilius Ficinus having promised the same thing, kept his word. Read this passage of Peter de St Romauld: “Marcilius Ficinus, a priest of Florence, a great platonic philosopher and a great divine, died, and immediately his ghost, in the form of a cavalier clothed in white, mounted on a horse of the same colour, ran full speed to the door of Michael Mercatus, who was his intimate friend and likewise a great platonic philosopher, who was then studying by break of day in his closet, in a town at a good distance from Florence, and cried to him that the discourses which they had together concerning the life to come, were true; and having said this, ran away towards the place whence it came, and quickly escaped his friend’s sigh who called to him to stay for him. This happened by reason of the agreement made between them, under the good pleasure of God, that he who died first should come and tell the survivor whether things passed in the other life, as Plato had written in his book of the Immortality of the Soul.” Cardinal Baronius says he had this story from the grandson of Mercatus. Baronius, relating this in the fifth volume of his Annals, observes, that Michael Mercatus, who had always lived exemplarily and like a good philosopher, raised his virtue to a higher pitch after that apparition, for he forsook the study of philosophy and applied himself wholly to the business of his salvation. The annalist adds, that the reciprocal promise that Marsilius Ficinus and Michael Mercatus

made to each other relating to the state of things after this life, was attested by divers learned persons, and had often been related to the people by the preachers. It is pity that Michael Mercatus did not leave a juridical attestation of it upon oath, and registered in the archives of Florence; he was much in the wrong that he did not do so. His grandson, Michael Mercatus, who told this story to Baronius, was prothonotary of the church, and recommendable for his probity and learning. The place where Seneca relates the tranquillity of mind wherewith Canus Julius went to his execution, is admirable. That good man was condemned to death by Caligula, and was not executed till ten days after his condemnation. He past them without any disquiet, and when it was told him that he must go to the place of execution, he lost nothing of his cheerfulness. “Why do you afflict yourselves?” said he to his friends. “You enquire whether the soul subsists after our death, I shall quickly know it.” The philosopher who accompanied him, asked him what he thought of at that moment? “I design,” answered Canus, “to observe well whether my soul will perceive its going out.” He promised that if he learned any thing, he would come and see his friends to declare his condition to them: but Seneca does not tell us whether any news was heard from Julius in consequence of this promise.—Art. Bonfadius.

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Bautru was very much afflicted at his wife’s disloyalty, but on the other side he soon laughed at it as others did, and would say sometimes, “If the Bautrus are cuckolds, they are no fools.” It was the most cunning expedient he could choose; for if such a jester as he was, had appeared serious, sullen and melancholy, he would have been very much laughed at: and when all is done, he might jest upon it at his ease, since he had not connived at the fault; it is only

a voluntary cuckoldom, which may justly be reproached either seriously or in jest. “It is somewhat surprising,” says M. Menage, “that for forty or fifty years, M. de Bautru should have filled all Europe with his jests and witty sayings, whilst there were so many things to say against him. ' Risum fecit, sed ridiculus fuit.’ I do not know where I have read this; assurance goes a great way.”

Art. Bautru.

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Nicius Erythr<®us quotes a proverb importing, that there are three sorts of men who make almost no use of the laws they prescribe to others. Nobody swerves more from the law in practice than a lawyer; nobody observes the regimen of health less than a physician; nobody fears the remorse of conscience less than a divine. You will find in the original the exception which the author has made. He does not relate the thing as jesters commonly do. They say, that the lawyers who advise others so much to go to law, seldom go to law themselves; that physicians who prescribe so much physic to their patients, take but little themselves; and that divines who set down so many articles of faith for others, believe but few themselves.—Art. Boccalini.

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“In my tragedies,” said Accius, “I say all that pleases me, but at the bar, I must hear what I would not.” I know a man of wit that made use of a like reason to divert his son from the study of the law, and to encourage him to the study of divinity. “What is more commodious,” said he to him, “than to speak before persons that do not contradict you? it is the  advantage of preachers: and what more incommodious than, when you have done speaking, to hear a man that confutes you, and makes you give an account, without quarter, of all that you have said, which is the condition of an advocate?” This puts me in mind of a thought of Montaigne: “as for the gift of

eloquence,” says he, “some have a facility and readiness, and which may be called the gift of utterance, so easy, that they are ready at every turn: others are slow, and speak only what is premeditated and elaborate. If I were to give my opinion in these two different advantages of eloquence, of which preachers and lawyers now-a-days make the chief profession, the slow one would seem to me to be the best preacher, and the other the best lawyer; because the employment of the former gives him as much time as he pleases to prepare himself, and he goes on with the thread of his discourse without any interruption; but the lawyer is obliged to come often into the lists, and the unforeseen answers of his adversary force him to turn about immediately. The advocate’s business is more difficult than the preacher’s, and yet we find more tolerable advocates, in my opinion, than we do preachers, at least in France.—Art. Accius.

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Cornelius Agrippa was very fond of a black dog, he kissed him often, made him eat sometimes at his table, had him in his bed, and when Wierus and Agrippa studied at the same table, that dog always lay between them among a heap of papers, Now, because Agrippa was whole weeks without going out of his stove, and knew almost all that passed in divers countries of the world, some silly people said that his dog was a devil that told him all. It is not long ago that a soldier, who is a French refugee, told me very seriously, that when M. de Melac had his dog with him, he always returned victorious. He assured me, that in the general opinion of the soldiers, that dog was a familiar spirit that revealed all the enemy’s posts, their numbers, designs, &c. to his master. Perhaps M. de Melac was not displeased that it was so believed; that opinion might make the soldiers fear nothing under his conduct.

Art. Cornelius Agrippa.

It seldom happens that the design of being praised, is the only end of those who are not satisfied with' the testimony of their consciences. Observe the persons who aspire to these two things, the one to be virtuous, the other to seem to be so, and you will find that their ambition is not contented with the reality and the appearances of virtue. Mere praises do not satisfy their desires; they wish something else may go along with them: reputation alone seems to them a reward too spiritual; they endeavour to incorporate it with the conveniences of life; they quickly make praises and approbation serve to acquire credit with those that distribute offices, and then they make use of that credit to enrich themselves, or to satisfy all their passions; so that the surest way to preserve the purity of the soul, is to do what has been said of Amphiaraus and Aristides. “Endeavour to be a virtuous man; let it be your chief end; seek not to appear so, for such an endeavour is attended with more dangerous consequences than you think of.”

Art. Amphiaraus.

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The following application was made in my hearing, of some verses to schismatical disputes. The preparations and the auxiliary troops of the two leaders, were compared to certain decorations of the stage.          ·

Aigles, vautours, serpens, grifons,
Hippocentaures et typhons,
Des taureaux furieux, dont la gueule béante
Eût transi de frayeur le grand cheval d’Atlante;
Un char que des dragons 6tincelans d’éclairs,
Promenaient en siffiant par le vuide des airs;
Demogorgon encor à la triste figure,
Et l’horreur et la mort s'y voyaient en peinture.

Theatric horrors strike upon the sight,
Eagles and vultures on the scene arise;
With hissing serpents winged griffins join,

Typhons with hippocentaurs; furious bulls
Whose gaping mouths affright Atlanta’s horse;
A car by fiery dragons drawn through air,
With demogorgon dreadful to behold,
And death and horror close the pictur’d scene.

Art. Amyraut.

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Aureolus was too fond of distinguishing himself by new opinions. This is a very dangerous character; a rock much to be feared; we scarcely ever find, that those, who have wit and learning enough to raise strong objections against the common opinions, have judgment enough to stop at a proper time, and to discern what is not worth the trouble of a reformation. And yet, it must be confessed, that these innovators and confounding wits, are sometimes necessary; for what considerable progress could be made without them? Should we not fall asleep, under pretence, that every thing has been found out already, and that we must acquiesce in the opinions of our fathers, as we inherit their lands? The disputes, and the confusions, which are raised by bold, ambitious, and rash men, are never altogether evil: they may be, in themselves, as great an evil as you please; but they are highly useful in respect to the sciences, and the improvement of the mind. This may be said even of civil wars. A very honest man affirms it of the civil wars, which ravaged France in the sixteenth century. He says, they refined either the genius or the language of some: they cleared the judgment of others; they served either for a bath to wash, or a curry-comb to scrape off their dirt.—Art Aureolus.

AmasÆus says horrid things concerning the debauchery that reigned in some universities. All the new comers listed themselves in the service of Bacchus, with certain solemn ceremonies, and they made

them swear by a St Stephen of wood, that they would spend all their money. If any one had more regard to the oath that he had sworn to the rector of the university, than to that pretended oath, the debauched scholars teazed him in such a manner that they obliged him either to go away, or to do like the rest. Bellarmin deplores with great vehemency, in his twentieth sermon, the drunkenness that prevailed in the university of Louvaine.—Art. AmasÆus.

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If wit could secure a man from a cuckold’s horns, which so many people fear, and so many call a trifle, M. de Bautru would have been exempted from that disgrace; but wit, courage, a noble mien, and even the royal dignity are no security against it. That disgrace has something common with death; but there is this difference, death spares not crowned heads, and there are every where very virtuous queens. Notwithstanding this difference, the same common place of consolation ought to make an infinite number of people bear patiently these two things. A poet who was a philosopher, endeavoured very nobly to inspire an indifference for death by this reason:—good kings, the most formidable monarchs, the greatest warriors, the finest geniuses, the inventors of arts, the most subtle philosophers are dead, and you that are an inconsiderable private man, and a slave to a thousand shameful passions, dare complain that death will not spare you? Let us say the same to those inconsiderable private persons, who are vexed at the intrigues of their wives:  “You torment yourselves for a thing, from which the most powerful monarchs, the greatest warriors, the finest wits, and the most learned and zealous doctors, are not exempted. What are you, that you should be more nice than they? learn, by the great examples, to bear your misfortune patiently.”

Lumina sis oculis etiam bonus Ancu’ reliquit
Qui melior multis quam tu fuit, improbe, rebus.
Inde alii multi reges, rerumque potentes
Occiderunt magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt.

But, more to comfort thee,.....
Consider, Ancus perished long ago,
Ancus, a better man, by much, than thou.
Consider, mighty kings, in pomp and state.
Fall, and ingloriously submit to fate.

Art. Bautru.

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There is a source of anarchy in the state of man which can never be wholly rectified. It takes place chiefly in ecclesiastical bodies; for, since the church of Rome has not the secret of fixing the liberty of saying yea or no in regard of the same things, what other church can ever expect to have it? Other churches have not, like that, tribunals which are acknowledged infallible. They are not governed with such airs of authority, and high reputation as that is. It is, therefore, less to be wondered at that the protestant ministers accuse each other of heresy in printed books, than to see a doctor of the Sorbonne, like Arnauld, torn in pieces like a heretic by the faction, or the Molinists, while three popes honoured him with their friendship. The divisions of ministers are not of so long a continuance. They are generally settled after a third or fourth pamphlet of a side, and the reputation of orthodoxy, which they would take from each other is secured to both. But even this smells a little of anarchy, and of that state of nature, in which the aggressor has hardly any thing else to fear than the resistance of the assaulted, and not the punishment of a common judge. Bodies politic are not subject to such disorders. No man is allowed to call another either knave or rascal, thief, traitor, murderer, prostitute,

or scandalous liar. Reputation is much better fixed here.—Art. Arnauld.

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The generality of men are not offended at the devout writings composed by an indevout and prophane person: but people of a nice and difficult relish are more scandalized at it than at a piece in which such an author should speak out his own thoughts. “Chuse one side,” would such persons say; “be one thing or other. Do not give the printer a work of piety to day, and to-morrow an obscene book: we cannot away with such a farce. Since you persist in evil courses, we had rather you should shew yourself in your proper colours.” It were to be· wished, that no one would presume to write books of devotion without being persuaded of what he says, and without practising it; for as to people of thought and reflection, it is matter of scandal to them to see such a contradiction between the thoughts and words of those who make such books, and much more between their actions and writings.

Art. Aretine.

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Bion pretended to prove two very different things; the one, that all thieves were sacrilegious men; the other, that no thief was sacrilegious. He drew those two consequences from the same principle; and that principle is one of the most solid truths which good philosophy teaches us concerning the nature of God. The Supreme Being, the most perfect Being, ought to have an absolute power over all things; all other beings depend on him; they belong to him, as to their Author and Preserver. Doubtless Bion’s design was, to refute this doctrine by two contradictory and pernicious consequences, which he pretended he could draw from it. This is one of them: “all those who steal what belongs to God are sacrilegious: now all thieves steal what belongs to God; for all things belong to him; therefore all thieves are sacrilegious.”

This is the other: “To transport a thing from one place, which belongs to God, to another place, which belongs to him likewise, is no sacrilege. Now those who rob temples, only carry things from one place which belongs to God, to another, which equally belongs to him, for all things belong to God. Therefore, those who rob temples do not commit sacrilege.” Seneca refutes these quirks easily and solidly.

Art. Bion.

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There are some books in which it is allowable, and even commendable, not to name the authors from whom a writer takes what he alleges. This suits a vain man extremely well; for these general terms, “I have read somewhere, a certain author relates,” &c. give an advantageous idea of an author. The reader thinks, he that speaks so, would not do it, if the book he mentions, without naming the author were known to other learned men. As for me, I endeavour chiefly to satisfy the curiosity of my readers, and therefore I always name the authors from whom I take what I relate; nay, I endeavour to discover whence the moderns have taken what they allege.—Art. Boreas.

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Count Sainthibal, a famous unbeliever, made great complaints, that no man of their sect had the gift of perseverance. “They do us no honour,” said he, “when they lie on their death-bed; they disgrace and belie themselves; they die like other men, confessing their sins, and receiving the sacrament.” He might have added, that they commonly practise the minute part of superstition. The example of Tullus Hostilius, alleged by the author of the Thoughts on Comets, is admirable on this subject. A long sickness brought that prince so low, that, after having slighted religion, he became at last superstitious, and a promoter of superstitions. “Ipse quoque longinquo

morbo est implicitus. Tunc adeo fracti simul cum corpore sunt spiritus illi feroces, ut qui nihil ante ratus esset minus regium, quam sacris dedere animum, repente omnibus magnis parvisque superstitionibus obnoxius degeret, religionibusque etiam populum impleret. Liv. Dec. I, lib. i, cap. 3. ³⁷—He lay sick a long time: then was that undaunted spirit so broken, as well as his bodily strength, that he, who before thought the consideration of sacred things unworthy of a king, immediately fell into superstitions of all kinds, and even surfeited the people with rites and ceremonies.” This conduct is not to be wondered at; most of those who live in profaneness, live only in doubts; they do not attain to certainty; when therefore, they fall sick, irreligion being no longer of any use to them, they take the safest way; that, which promises eternal happiness, if it prove true, and makes them run no hazard, if it should prove false. They confess to a priest; they do every thing else; “ad majorem cautelam.”

Art. Bion.

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Godeau, who made Bellarmin’s eulogy, says, that one of his usual sayings was, that the cardinals are not holy, because they would be most holy; that is to say, popes who are called most holy fathers: an opinion which he had from his uncle, Marcellus II, who cried out one day at table, “I do not see how those who are seated in St Peter’s chair can be saved.” Art. Bellarmin.

Bertelier having been excommunicated, in the year 1552, by the consistory of Geneva, made his complaint to the senate. The ministers were sent for, to give their reasons for it; and both parties being heard, the senate confirmed the excommunication. Eighteen months after, Bertelier had recourse again to

the senate, who, after having heard Calvin’s opposition, pronounced that Bertelier should be admitted to the holy sacrament. As soon as Calvin heard this news, he desired the syndics to assemble the senate, and, when they were met, he represented his reasons, and concluded with an oath, that he would rather lose his life, than give his consent that such a man should receive the Lord’s supper. The clamour which was raised against the ministers, as if, in some respects, they had invaded the rights of the sovereignty, was the reason why the council of two hundred ordered, that the final judgment of causes of excommunication should belong to the senate; and that the senate might absolve the excommunicated, as they should think fit. By virtue of this decree, the senate granted letters of absolution to Bertelier, which were sealed with the seal of the republic; the sacrament was to be administered within two days; when Calvin came to hear of what had past, he soon resolved what to do, and preached against the contempt of the sacrament; he raised his voice, lifted up his hands, and said, that he would imitate St Chrysostom; that he would not oppose force to force, but that he would rather suffer himself to be massacred, than that his hands should present the holy mysteries to those who had been judged unworthy of them: this was a thunderbolt which confounded Bertelier’s faction; so that it was not thought fit that he should present himself to the communion. The next day, after the sacrament, Calvin, accompanied by his consistory, desired leave of the senate, and of the council of two hundred, to speak to the people about this matter, for as much as it concerned the abrogation of a law made by the people. This made so great an impression on the people’s minds, that it was resolved the Swiss Cantons should be consulted about it; and that the decree of the two hundred should be suspended; but that none should say that the ancient regulations had been in the least infringed. By this means, the consistory obtained a complete victory; and, in a manner, made the senate, and the council of two hundred, buckle to. What would they not have done in a democratical country? Is it possible to rule over men who tell the people, from the pulpit, that they had rather suffer themselves to be killed, than consent that holy things should be profaned? St Chrysostom’s example, properly alleged, is an artful way of threatening the government with an insurrection.

Art. Bertelier.

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Julius CÆsar was no less qualified for intrigues than for battles: no man could dissemble or flatter better than he, when there was occasion for it. He managed his intrigues so well, when he sued to be Great Pontif, that he carried that office from two illustrious competitors, who were much older, and much more deserving on account of the services done to the republic than he was. His great courage, and natural pride, became so pliant, that he condescended to the meanest flatteries towards those who could be favourable to him; and, to obtain his aim the better, he borrowed very great sums of money to buy votes. By this means, he gained over the poor and the rich to his interests; the first because they thought themselves obliged to favour a man who had given them so much money, and the last, because they feared they should never be repaid, if Caesar failed of his designs: and, indeed, if he had not been elected Pontifex Maximus, he must have left the city, and become bankrupt: for this reason, he told his mother, when he was going to the place where the election was to be made; “this day you will either see me Pontifex Maximus, or a fugitive.” Could any one devise a more cunning way than he made use of, to support his own interest in his absence? He chained, if one may so say, all those who were promoted

to any offices; for be laboured, by his intrigues and his credit, to exclude from them all such as would not promise to support him whilst he should be absent; so that the only way to attain to offices, by his recommendation, was to engage in his interests, and to promise him, in a manner, a blind obedience: neither was he always satisfied with verbal promises, but exacted an oath, and a promise in writing from several. Was it difficult to foretel, that a republic, where such disorders reigned, would not continue long? Sylla had a good foresight, when, yielding to the repeated desires of divers persons of quality, he told them; “they would repent one day for having hindered him from making away with that young man, who had many Mariuses in his bosom.”

Art. CÆsar.

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Friar Anselm, a bare-footed Augustin, published a huge book, entitled, “the Palace of Honour, or the Historical Genealogies of the illustrious House of France, and of divers noble Families of Europe.” This work was printed at Paris, in the year 1668. A great number of things are found abbreviated in it concerning heraldry, the coronation of kings, solemn entries, baptisms of the children of France, royal funerals, military orders, &c. There was not so much in that great volume, as in the two that followed it; they all need a new edition, revised, corrected, and augmented: but it is certain that they have been of great use; and we can hardly conceive the pains this good monk must needs have taken to collect so many names, so many marriages, so many births, and so many dates. It is all in vain; where nature strongly inclines to any one thing, the monk’s habit will not cure the man of it. Father Anselm was born with a talent for tracing genealogies; the little relation such matters have to that kind of life which he had vowed, did not destroy the bent of his inclination. One of

his brethren, though not of the barefooted kind, ran night and day the geographical maze; this was his natural inclination; the habit of an Augustin did not change it.—Art. Anselm.

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It is said that some decretals, being suspected of falsity, the university of Bologna deputed James de Castello, a little, and very ugly man, to Bonifacius VIII. He came into the Consistory, attended with a great many persons. The Pope received him very graciously; and thinking that he was upon his knees, bid him rise three times, one after another. The deputy was so ashamed, that he could not tell what to say: a cardinal said, that he was another Zaccheus, which made every body laugh. Many writers affirm that it was not Castello, but Andreas, a man of little size and very ugly.—Art. Andreas.

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Some persons have believed that brazen heads could be made under certain constellations, and that we might draw answers from them that would serve for a guide in all the affairs a man had. A certain Yepes relates, “that Henry de Villeine had made one at Madrid, that was broken by the command of John II, king of Castile.” Virgil, pope Silvester, Robert of Lincoln, and Roger Bacon had the like heads, if we believe certain writers. Albertus Magnus was judged to be more ingenious; for it it is pretended that he “had composed a whole man of that sort, having laboured thirty years without discontinuation to forge him under divers aspects and constellations; as for example, the eyes, when the sun was in a sign of the zodiac correspondent with such a part, which he cast with metals mixed together, and marked with the characters of the same signs and planets, and of their divers and necessary aspects; and so the head, neck, shoulders, thighs, and legs, fashioned in divers times, and raised and fastened together in the form of

a man, which had the industry to reveal to the said Albertus the solution of all his chief difficulties.” This is what is called the Androïs of Albertus Magnus. If any one will maintain that such a tradition must have some foundation, Naudé assigns a very plausible one, which is, that Albertus might perhaps have in his closet a head, or statue of a man, like those machines of Boethius, of which Cassiodorus speaks: “Metella mugiunt, Diomedis in aere grues buccinant, aeneus anguis insibilat, aves simulatae fritinniunt, et quæ propriam vocem nesciunt ab aere dulcedinem probantur emittere cantilenae.—Metals bellow; Diomedes' cranes chatter in brass; a brazen serpent hisses; imitated birds chirp; and things, which have no voice of their own, are found, in brass, to counterfeit the sweetness of singing.”

Art. Albertus Magnus.

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The life of Bennon, bishop of Meissen says, “that he declared, when he was dying, that he had obtained by his prayers, that the worship established in his cathedral should never cease. This worship was singular, and not to be seen at Rome itself; the intervals of the psalmody were so contrived, in the cathedral of Meissen, that, every hour of the day and night, they sang the praises of the celestial court. “Ut nullum diei aut noctis tempus cantu et Deorum hymnis ac laudibus vocet.” Bennon died like a false prophet, if he desired, when he was dying, that this would always continue.—Art. Bennon.

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A quick repartee which Baldus made, caused him to be admired. He was of a small size, so that, as soon as he appeared in the auditory, they cried out— “Minuit præsentia famam.—His presence lessens his fame.” He answered, without altering his countenance, “Augebit cætera virtus.—Virtue will enlarge every thing else.” Pancirollus adds, “Quo dicto

omnibus sui admirationem injecit.—Which reply made him much admired by all.”—Art. Baldus.

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Bion told his friends “that they might be assured of their proficiency, when they could endure a reproof from any body with the same indifferency and unconcernedness as they could hear the highest encomiums.” Plutarch has reason to observe, “that the rule of Bion is rather a sign of a confirmed and perfect habit of our soul, than a mere sign of amendment.” It is, in truth, a character of perfection.—Art. Bion.

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Berengarius sets forth, in his apology for Abelard, “that his enemies prepared the judgment of the trial amidst their cups.” A more satirical description cannot be seen than that which he gives of the preliminaries of the synodal judgment. He says, “that after the fathers of the council had well eaten and drank, they caused Peter Abelard’s writings to be read to them. While it was read to them, they stamped with their feet, they laughed, they jeered, they drank; and when they heard any thing which was new to their ears, they gnashed their teeth against the author, and demanded of each other, if they would suffer such a monster to live? They had drank so much, that they fell asleep; so that, when their reader met with some suspicious passages, and asked if they did not condemn it? they started out of their sleep, and said, half asleep, some ‘ damnamus, and others only ‘ namus.’ ” I cannot forbear inserting here this short story. A judge was wont to fall asleep sometimes on the bench. “One day the president, gathering the votes of the court, and coming to ask his, he answered, starting out of his sleep, and not being quite awake, ‘ that his opinion was, that the man should be beheaded.’  ‘ But the business in hand is about a meadow,’ said the president. ‘ Let it be mowed then,’ replied the judge. ” Balzac had, perhaps,

read this in a burlesque piece of Francis Hotman, disguised under the name of “Matago de Montagonibus against Matharel.” “Nota omnibus,” says he, “est historia de eo qui cum dormiens a praeside excitatus et sententiam interrogatus esset, semisomnis dixit, suspendatur, suspendatur, credens criminalem processum esse. Cui praeses, quinimo, inquit, agitur de prato; ergo defalcetur, respondit ebrius.”—Art. Berengarius.

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One of the difficulties which attend the writing of history is, that the readers are apt to look upon the noblest actions, of which they find themselves incapable, as so many lies. This has been observed long ago. “Ac mihi quidem,” said Sallust, Sallust. in Prooem. belli Catilin, pag. 6, 7. ³⁸ “in primis arduum videtur, res gestas scribere; primum, quod facta dictis exaequanda sunt; dehinc, quia plerique, quæ delicta reprehenderis, malevolentia et invidia dicta putant, ubi de magna virtute, atque gloria bonorum memores, quæ sibi quisque facilia factu putat, aequo animo accipit, supra, veluti ficta, pro falcis ducit.—For my part, I look upon the writing of history to be the most difficult task; first, because the actions and style must correspond; then, because most readers think, when you find fault, it is through malevolence and envy; and because, when you celebrate the remarkable virtue and glory of good men, what each man thinks he could with ease have performed himself, he admits to be true, but what is above his capacity, rejects as false.” Pericles had already made the same observation concerning those who hear a funeral oration. “The praises,” said he, “which the auditors think themselves capable of deserving, are not subject to be criticised; but if they exceed their strength, they render them envious and incredulous, and are looked upon by them as fiction, and a piece

of flattery.” The foundation of all this is, that every one is apt to measure other men’s actions by his own. “Quæ volumus et credimus libenter.” They are Julius Caesar’s words, “et quæ sentimus ipsi, reliquos sentire speramus.—What we desire, and willingly believe, and what we ourselves think, we hope are the sentiments of others.” Nothing is more easy than to deceive those who never deceived others, and nothing is more difficult than to draw those into a snare who have always acted fraudulently, The reason both of this facility and this difficulty may easily be guessed at. A good, plain, and sincere man does not suspect any inclination to deceit, and for that reason he acts    without much precaution; but a knave, thinking that others are like himself, keeps on his guard against all the artifices which he knows he should make use of on the like occasions. It is usual to judge disadvantageously of those who mistrust everything, and who, readily believing all the ill reports which are spread concerning their neighbours, deny, or question, or put an ill construction on the best and the most laudable actions which they hear of. What Phaedrus said of certain persons who take the descriptions or censures of vice for personal affronts, may be applied to them: “Are you so imprudent,” said he to them, “as to reveal the secrets of your hearts in such a manner?”

Suspicione si quis errabit sua,
Et rapiet ad se, quod erit commune omnium,
Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam.

Others had already made use of this thought. Cicero had said: “Neminem nomino; quare irasci mihi nemo poterit, nisi qui ante de se voluit confiteri.— I name nobody; nobody, therefore, can be angry with me, but he who is resolved to betray himself.” It is therefore pretended that men, credulous with regard to slanders, who are otherwise incredulous as to the praises of their neighbours, shew thereby the

bad state of their minds, their disposition to evil, and their inability for what is good. Observe, that there is no subject, on which the Roman Catholics have made more use of this common-place, than that of continency; for they have affected to say, that those who accuse the clergy of not observing it, and those who think the observation of it to be almost impossible, are lascivious men, who judge of others by themselves.—Art. Bembus.

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Belleforest working on his thirty-seventh novel, was seized with such a remorse of conscience, that he resolved to leave off his translation. “I will lay down the cudgels,” says he, “and leave from henceforth those subjects that may be turned every way, and from which some may receive benefit, and others take an example to make use of in their follies; for what I have done of it at this time was rather to gratify a friend of mine, than out of a desire that such a piece should come out by my means. Not that age dispenses me with speaking merrily and pleasantly, but there are different times for those merriments; and besides, I have other designs of greater consequence than Bandel’s Histories, or the amours of those, who by their example should have deterred us from following our sensual appetites so far, as to become, at last, the talk of posterity by the memory of our follies. This king, then, shall put a stop to our discourse, and from henceforth make an end of any thing that is prophane: if sometimes a more solid . history does not brisk up my spirits, and a more serious discourse does not cause me to think longer than I have done to follow the author’s footsteps, whom I have more adorned and amplified, than followed or imitated.” To excuse what is past, he adds this remark; “I do not write love stories as being lascivious, but as one that laughs at fools, and those that are transported with, and suffer themselves to be

conquered by their lusts. And I accuse adulterers, detest the infamous, abhor murderers, and am sorry that there are such senseless men in the world, who suffer themselves to die for so short a pleasure as the ease of the body. In short, I praise virtue, and blame sin, wishing that I myself, growing better by this reading, may also see others at the end of their folly, by the amendment of their lives. If any body take more delight in the merry stories that are in Bandel, let him sport himself with them at his ease. As for me, as I have said, I yield him my share of it, and leave him also the happiness and glory which he may receive by it.” See here a lay Frenchman that scruples to translate what an Italian monk had written about love. But that scruple did not continue long, for Belleforest after all finished his translation, and added also some supplements to it.—Art. Bandel.

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Peter Abelard, was on the point of going to seek for an asylum in the country of the infidels, against the agents or promoters of orthodoxy. He had been very ill-treated, and was more alarmed than another; for as soon as he heard that there would be speedily an assembly of ecclesiastics, he imagined it was to condemn him. Moreover, he knew by experience, the great credit of those agents, and it was not easy to escape them under princes of their party. They wrote every where, and before their enemy came into a town, the description of his errors made the inhabitants afraid, and raised every body against him. There was a time when those who had the pope’s ear, might make the best part of Europe an uninhabitable country for a man, whom they were resolved to cry down as a heretic; and that poor man might in some manner have applied to them some passages of the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. Therefore, it is no wonder that Peter Abelard had a mind to retire among the Mahometans or Pagans:

he was in hopes that by paying a tribute he might have the liberty to profess Christianity out of the sphere of the odium theologicum, and he feared that unless be did so, he should always find himself inclosed in that sphere. —Art. Alciatus.

The Jewish insurgent Barcochebas was particularly barbarous towards the Christians; indeed he made a great slaughter of the gentiles, but he did not force them to renounce their religion. He played the part of a converter, only towards the Christians; I say of a dragooning converter, and, perhaps worse; for he condemned all those to death, who would not forsake Jesus Christ, and load him with curses. Justin Martyr has complained of this: “Proximo namque bello Judaico Barcochebas defectionis Judæorum dux et princeps, solos Christianos ad gravia supplicia nisi Christum abnegarent et maledictis incesserent, protrabi jussit.” David Gans does not deny, but that those of his nation spilled whole torrents of blood. I am even of opinion, that he represents their executions to be much more dreadful than they actually were. He pretends, that, in the city of Alexandria alone, they killed above two hundred thousand persons, and that, in the island of Cyprus, and the parts adjacent, they did not leave one man alive. O religious wars, how horrible are your cruelties!

Art. Barcochebas.

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Agathon observes, “That it is likely that divers things happen that are not likely.” Euripides thought that maxim so fine, that he repeated it five times, for he ended his Medea, his Alcestis, his Andromache, his Bacchæ, and his Helena with this sentence, “the gods sport with the foresight of men, and equally deceive their hopes and fears. Sometimes they divert the events that every body expected, and opening unknown passages and ways,

make designs to succeed that were likely impossible.” Seneca made very good use of that thought, to encourage those who are astonished at the likely and most probable approaches of ill fortune. “How many things,” says he, “have happened that no body expected? How many others have never appeared, although every body expected them? Nothing is so sure among those we fear, but that it is yet more certain that our fears and our hopes prove sometimes groundless.” Not only the physicians, but also the newsmongers ought to make good use of the sentence of Agathon. A professor of Leipsic exhorts physicians not to speak without much precaution, if they will honour physic. He would not have them promise too much, nor frighten excessively, but speak always conditionally, and with a perhaps; and all this by virtue of Seneca’s maxim that we have seen above. The like advice may be given to great talkers of news: I speak of talkers that have much sagacity, and much judgment. They guess right in a thousand occasions; it happens a hundred times in a year to them not to have reason to repent of the decisive tone, wherewith they laughed at the hopes or threats of the gazetteers. It makes them bolder to reject magisterially all the news that is against likelihood; but they are sometimes mistaken; for the event confirms on some occasions the most impertinent and the most extravagant news that can be reported, and which they had condemned as chimeras, or as things inconsistent with the wisdom that so much appeared in the council of a state. That rule is not always safe, and catches the arguers that trust too much to it. It is therefore a prudent thing to act considerately, and not to pronounce definitive decrees, under pretence of having the most plausible appearances in our favour. But if in that very case it is not reasonable to act the dictator, what blame do not those deserve who promise the greatest successes against all appearances, and publish those promises as being grounded on St. John’s Revelation. A fling at Jurieu. Ed. ³⁹

Art. Agathon.

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Charles V, in his retirement, made choice of it in the monastery of St. Justus, situated near Placentia, on the frontiers of Castile and Portugal. The monks of that monastery call themselves Hieronymites. He caused a little house to be built next to that convent, made up of six or seven rooms, and shut himself up in it in the month of February, 1557. He kept only twelve servants, and a horse. He did not employ himself so much in the exercises of devotion, but that he amused himself with many other things, as in taking the air on horse-back, in cultivating his garden, in making clocks, and mechanical experiments with a famous engineer. Some days before his death, he caused his funeral to be celebrated, and assisted personally at it. Some have said, that he endeavoured to make several clocks agree together, with so much exactness, that they should all strike at the same moment; and that this design was not so difficult to execute, as the agreement of religions, which he had in his head in the time of the Interim. We must not forget what a young monk said to him. The emperor going one morning, in his turn, to awake the other monks, he found this, who was but a novice, so fast asleep, that he could hardly awake him: the novice getting up at last, against his will, and being yet half asleep, could not forbear saying, that “he ought to be satisfied with having disturbed the quiet of the world, as long as he was in it, without coming to disturb the quiet of those, who had left it.”—Art. Charles V.

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It appears from a multitude of passages in ancient

authors, that the heathens believed there were divinities jealous of the prosperity of mankind, and who never failed, sooner or later, to check, with some sensible misfortune, those who had obtained any great advantages. Camillus, full of this thought, could not behold Rome’s happiness in the pillage of Veii, without apprehending some mixture of adversity from these sorts of deities, who delighted in distributing good and evil. For this reason he prayed, that, if the present prosperity of the Romans must be tempered with some disgrace, it might fall on himself in particular, and not on his country. What could be more heroical? What a greatness of soul was this?

Art. Camillus.

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Julius Caesar was of the family Julia, which pretended to be descended from Venus, by Æneas the son of Anchises and of that goddess. The posterity of Ascanius, the son of Aeneas and Creusa, and sirnamed lulus, subsisted in Alba, till that town was ruined by Tullus Hostilius, king of Rome. That prince transported it to Rome, where it prospered. It does not appear, that it formed above two chief branches there; the first bore the sirname of Tullus, the other that of Caesar. The persons of the first branch, who begin to appear in history, are Caius Julius Tullus, and Vopiscus Julius Tullus. The first was consul in the year of Rome 265, and Decemvir in the year 300. The last was consul in the year 271. The most ancient Caesars, that are to be found, had some dignities in the eleventh year of the first punic war, that is to say, in the year of Rome 546. From that time Caesars appear very frequently in the offices of the republic, till Caius Julius Caesar, the emperor’s father. He was the son of another Caius Julius Caesar, whose history is unknown; it appears only, that he was married to Martia, who descended from the family of king Ancus Martius. He had three children, two sons and

one daughter, who was the wife of Marius: the two sons, Caius Julius Caesar, and Lucius Julius Caesar did not rise above the praetorship, dying in the flower of their age, and in a singular manner; for both of them died as they were putting on their stockings in the morning, Caius at Pisa, and Lucius at Rome, where he exercised the dignity of praetor. Caius married Aurelia, and had one son, and some daughters by her. The son is he, who became the celebrated dictator. He was born at Rome, the twelfth of the month Quintilis 658, and lost his father in the year 669. I have taken this from a book, which contains a large account of the family Julia, composed by Joannes Glandorpius, and intituled Familiæ Gentis Juliæ concinnatæ.—Art. CÆsar.

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There are some subjects inexhaustible; one may be always making additions to them, because there is no end of finding something or other not thought of before. This is the fate of dictionaries. There are other subjects so difficult, so obscure, and embarrassed with so many circumstances, that all we can do is to avoid being often mistaken in them. In a word, there are a great many reasons why a book should grow more perfect from several impressions. Very often a piece becomes good at last, which at first was very bad. This is always a disadvantage to the author; for it may be objected that he was a little too hasty, and that his first production was no better than an untimely birth.—Art. Camden.

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Calvin was not solicitous to heap up riches. For a man, who had acquired so great a reputation and authority, to content himself with a hundred crowns a year salary, and, after having lived till near fiftyfive years of age with the greatest frugality, to leave behind him no more than three hundred crowns, his library included; is something so heroical, that it

must be stupidity itself not to admire it. This is one of the most extraordinary victories, virtue and magnanimity can obtain over nature, even in those who are ministers of the gospel. Calvin has left behind him many, who imitate him in his active life, his zeal and affection for the cause: they employ their voices, their pens, their steps and solicitations, for the advancement of the kingdom of God: but then they take care not to forget themselves, and are, generally speaking, a demonstration that the church is a bountiful mother, and that nothing is lost in her service: they verify St Paul’s doctrine, that, “godliness has the promises of the present life, as well as of that which is to come.” In a word, God is pleased to give so great a blessing to their domestic cares, that we see them enjoy considerable pensions, and leave large estates and settlements to their heirs. They distribute alms, they bestow great charities: which they may easily do, when appointed trustees for the disposal of all sums given by others, without being liable to any account. To conclude, such a will as this of Calvin, and such a disinterestedness, is' a thing so very extraordinary, as might make even those, who cast , their eyes on the philosophers of ancient Greece, say of him, “Non inveni tantam fidem in Israel.—I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.” When Calvin was taking his leave of those of Strasburg, in order to return to Geneva, they offered to continue his freedom, and the revenue of a prebend they had assigned him: he accepted the former, but rejected the latter. He carried one of his brothers with him to Geneva, without ever thinking of advancing him to any honours, as others would have done with his great credit.—Art. Calvin.

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They who oppose Mary queen of Scots, produce Buchanan, and they who stand up for her, cite Camden.

In this contest the presumptions will be against Buchanan. A rambling vagabond life like his, and so many verses composed by him, both satirical and lascivious, can prepossess no man in his favour, but will at least postpone him to Camden, whose wisdom, virtue, and integrity, was always without reproach. Besides, Camden had no personal interest in the justification of Mary, as Buchanan had in her defamation. Buchanan was long before engaged in the faction which dethroned and banished her. He was concerned therefore in a scene, of all others the most execrable, if this queen was not most criminal, and nothing could excuse it but making her appear such. Again, Buchanan’s patron was head of the party which dethroned queen Mary; on the contrary, Camden lay under a thousand obligations to queen Elizabeth; so that Buchanan’s charge against queen Mary, is a manifesto in behalf of his Mecænas; but Camden’s concessions in her favour are so many blemishes upon queen Elizabeth’s memory. In short, Buchanan was an enemy to the Catholics, and so was Camden; and from this conformity in religion arises great difference in their authorities; Buchanan’s is weakened by it, and Camden’s corroborated. The Catholic writers, Mary’s most extravagant panegyrists, have not failed observing to their adversaries, that they justify her not from the writings of some monk or good Catholic, but from the testimony of a heretic historiographer to queen Elizabeth, his benefactor. If there were nothing to oppose in answer to this, they who are determined by the greatest probabilities would in one moment give up their historical Pyrrhonism; but it may be objected that Camden wrote under a prince, who, as queen Mary’s son, must rather wish to have queen Elizabeth’s reign blackened, than that of his own mother; and that in such a case it will be no wonder if this annalist should in some respects sacrifice the honour of the late queen, to the filial affection of the reigning prince. Besides, though Camden was an enemy to the Catholics, he was not less so to the Scotch puritans. No one is ignorant at what rate the episcopalians at this day treat Buchanan’s maxims and those of his faction. “Hence those impious doctrines, that all right of dominion is derived from the people; that kings acting against the laws are to be controlled; that it is lawful for the people and inferior magistrates to reform the constitution both ecclesiastical and civil, against the will of the sovereign, and such like others which are destructive of all religion, and of the very being of mankind. Hence arise those calumnies against queen Mary in the Scottish History, and especially in that infamous libel intitled the Discovery.” Smith in vita Camdeni, p. 53. ⁴⁰ This is what may be urged to weaken Camden’s authority, and what has been actually urged. It is reported that Camden’s work was curtailed by king James’s order, and that the blanks which arose from this retrenchment, made room for other scraps more conformable to the humour of that prince. This supposition destroys all the advantages the Catholics pretend to draw from the annals of queen Elizabeth. But is this supposition true? I cannot tell. Is it certain? If it were, Dr Smith a minister of the church of England, would never dare to deny it. Is it a ground for scepticism? Undoubtedly, since even in London some affirm and others deny it. One thing, we must observe, renders it probable, which is that Camden sent a copy of his second volume to Paris. Is not this a sign he was afraid they would alter his manuscript? And is not this fear a proof of what he had already experienced? If it is not a sufficient proof, it is at least a foundation for contention and dispute.—Art. Camden.

It may be said that of all declarations of love, none costs a woman of rank and quality so much as a verbal one; nor is this to be wondered at: women have a greater command over their tongues, than over several other signs that discover the fire concealed within; for which reason, shame hinders them more easily from having recourse to articulate words, which are a sign of institution, than from expressing their desires in their faces by some natural signs. And for as much as men for the most part, are very dexterous in the discovery of these tokens, and readily make an advantage of them, women are seldom reduced to a verbal discovery; a necessity so rare, that it is no wonder if by that means it becomes very difficult.—Art. Caraccioli.

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The commonwealth of learning is a state extremely free. The empire of truth and reason is only acknowledged in it, and under their protection an innocent war is waged against any one whatever. Friends ought to be on their guard there against their friends, fathers against their children, fathers-in-law against their sons-in-law, as in the iron age.

----------- non hospes ab hospite tutus,
Non socer à genero.

Ovid Met. lib. i, p. 144.

No rights of hospitality remain,
The guest by him who harboured him is slain;
The son-in-law pursues his father’s life, &c.

Dryden.

Every body, there, is both sovereign and under every body’s jurisdiction. The laws of the society have done no prejudice to the independency of the state of nature, as to error and ignorance; in that respect every particular man has the right of the sword, and

may exercise it without asking leave of those who govern. It is very easy to know why the sovereign power ought to leave every one at liberty to write against authors who are mistaken, but not to publish satires. It is because satires divest a man of his reputation, which is a kind of civil homicide, and consequently a punishment which ought only to be inflicted by the sovereign; but the criticising of a book tends only to show that an author has not such and such a degree of knowledge. Now, as he may enjoy all the rights, and all the privileges of the society with this defect of knowledge, without his reputation of an honest man and a good subject of the commonwealth receiving the least blemish by it; no usurpation is made on the majesty of the state in showing the public the faults which are in a book. It is true the reputation of being a learned man, which an author has acquired, is sometimes diminished thereby, as also the pecuniary profit which he drew from it; but if it be done in support of the cause of reason and for the interest of truth only, and in a civil manner, nobody ought to find fault with it. Such critics have nothing in common with the writers of defamatory libels; they advance nothing without proof; they are both witnesses and accusers exposed to the punishment of retaliation; they run the same hazard they make others run; but a libeller hides himself that he may not be obliged to prove what he publishes, and that he may do evil without being answerable for it; so that natural justice requires that every member of the commonwealth should preserve his independency as to the refutation of authors, without any regard to the relation of father, father-inlaw, husband, brother, &c. We have several instances of it: Joseph Scaliger and Isaac Vossius have not spared their fathers’ opinions; and we see that M. Bernoulli, professor at Basil, and M. Bernoulli, professor at Groningen, do not spare each other, notwithstanding their being brothers.—Art. Catius.

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It has not been thought sufficient to criticise Calvin’s Institution as a pseudonymous piece, but the very plate which they pretend he ordered to be engraved for the title-page has been commented on. “This design,” say they, “was a sword in the midst of flames, with this motto, ‘ Non veni mittere pacem, sed gladium.— I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ ” Many authors have maintained that this was his own device; M. Drelincourt says it is false, and that their proofs are impertinent. “For it is,” continues he, “as if any one should object to me the symbolical figures which are placed without my knowledge on the frontispiece of some of my works, and pretend them to be my proper device. We are not at all responsible for the printers’ actions, who on these occasions think they have an equal liberty with painters or poets; but if we consider this device more nearly, we shall find it neither Calvin’s nor the printer’s, but Jesus Christ’s himself, who says expressly he was not come to send peace into the world, but war, the sword, and fire. So that all the strokes and subtleties of the Jesuit wound Christ himself, and arm the Atheist against his holy doctrines.” I believe, in Calvin’s life-time, they made a great outcry against this pretended device; for I have observed that Girard, who printed the Institution at Geneva in 4to., left out the above-mentioned motto about the flaming sword, though it is on the title-page of his tract against the fantastic and furious sect of the Libertines, anno 1545.

Art. Calvin.

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It has been said that a steady mind is neither moved with the threatenings of a tyrant, nor with the danger of shipwreck, nor with thunder or lightning;

and that the ruins of the world would fall upon him without making him afraid:

Justum, et tenacem propositi virum,
Non civum ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solida: neque auster, Dux inquieti turbid us Adriæ, Nec fulminantis magna Jovis man us:
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidiim ferient ruinæ.

Horat. Od. iii, lib. iii, ver. 1, &c.

Nor civil rage, nor tyrants’ frowns controul,
The steady purpose of the just man’s soul.
Though storms and ruin are around him hurl’d,
Fearless he meets the shock, nor dreads a falling world.

But such a steadiness is scarcely any where to be found in its full extent: we seldom see more than some parts of it: there are some noble souls, which no promises, nor any flattery, can divert from the paths of virtue; but they are not proof against the threats of a dungeon, or such other ill treatment. Some form the most noble and magnanimous resolutions for the good of their country; their notions are great, and show a generous and steady soul; but they could not put them in execution; they would perform their duty very ill in a besieged town, if they were placed in the breach: an involuntary fear would seize them, and make them run away, even before they should distinctly perceive it: the body of these men seconds not the soul: a certain disposition of the organs, which mechanically produces fear, dejects the superior part, and puts it out of countenance. There is, without doubt, a courage or intrepidity of mind, which is sometimes attended with great bodily fear. Mr. Hobbes’s courage and steadiness related only to the objects of the mind. There was scarcely any proposition or paradox which astonished him, or troubled his conscience; but the least danger of his

body frighted him. Montaigne, who seems to be so much above prejudices, and so well furnished with the pretended force of incredulity, had a softness of soul which would not permit him to see a pullet’s throat cut without uneasiness, nor could he patiently hear a hare groan under the teeth of his dogs. This difference proceeds from the difference of temperament; we must not therefore wonder that a man, who has the boldness to shake off the most general and the most sacred opinions, should he be so weak as to tremble at the sight of an executioner, and to dissemble his belief in order to avoid the pains of the torture. The strengh of his soul respects not the objects of the body, but those of the mind. A mean soul capable of all sorts of villainy and infamy, the greatest coward and the greatest rogue in the world, has sometimes surprising strength to bear the most violent torments; the rack, ordinary and extraordinary, the most terrible will not make him confess any thing: but how many men of great virtue and of admirable probity, would rather accuse themselves falsely, than expose themselves to the torture? How many persons, who were true lovers of their religion, have had recourse to all manner of shifts and equivocations, and left no stone unturned to save their lives whilst they were in the prisons of the inquisition? The fear of capital punishment disordered their souls and suspended all the strength of their piety. Thus the laws of the union of the soul and the body produce a great diversity in men.

Art. Charron.

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Queen Blanche of Castile, suckled her son, (afterwards St Louis) herself, nor would suffer him to take any other milk. A circumstance is related about this, which is not only extremely singular, but also very proper to shew us how strongly she was possessed with this resolution. “One day, when the queen

was in a violent fit of a fever which lasted extraordinarily, a lady of quality who to please her mjesty or to imitate her, suckled her own child also, seeing little Lewis cry for thirst, took upon her to give him the breast. The queen coming out of her fit, asked for her son and gave him her breast; but the prince would not take it, either because he was satisfied, or because he did not like hot milk after having taken as much of the cool as he wanted. It was not difficult to guess at the cause, and the queen suspected it presently. She pretended to be in pain to thank the person to whom she was so much indebted for the good office she had done to her son in her illness; and the lady thinking to make her court, confessed that the tears of the infant had so sensibly moved her, that she could not forbear assisting him. But the queen, instead of answering, gave her a scornful look, and putting her finger into her son’s mouth, compelled him in that manner to bring up all that he had taken. This violence made all those wonder who saw it; and the queen to make their astonishment cease, said, that she could not endure that another woman should have a right to dispute the quality of mother with her. So much they were then persuaded that the suckling of children made part of their education.—Art. St Lewis.

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Charron had a wonderful esteem for his friend Montaigne’s essays, and adopted several of his maxims. It may be said without rashness, that he who should have instructed the other, was his scholar, and that the divine learned more from the gentleman, than the gentleman from the divine. There are a great many thoughts in the Books of Wisdom that had appeared in Montaigne’s Essays. It was doubtless this docility of Charron which contributed much to the intimate affection that Montaigne had for him, and that this was the reason why he permitted him by his last will, to

bear the full arms of his noble family, because he left no male issue behind him. Charron shewed a very solid gratitude by his will, for he left 500 crowns to the lady Leonora de Montaigne, the wife of the sieur Camein, councillor in the parliament of Bourdeaux, the good sister of the late sieur de Montaigne, knight of the king’s order; and he made the said sieur de Camein his sole and universal heir and residuary legatee.—Art. Charron.

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Æschylus was adjudged to be an impious man, on account of a dramatic piece, and he was upon the point of being stoned to death, when his brother Amynias tucking up his sleeve, showed to the people that he had lost a hand in the service of the commonwealth. Amynias had been thus maimed at the battle of Salamis, where he had signalised himself more than any Athenian; so that the judges reflecting on his valour and the affectionate concern he displayed for his brother, showed mercy to Æschylus and acquitted him. It is thus Ælian relates the matter. I have read somewhere that he would have been stoned upon the stage if he had not fled for sanctuary to an altar of Bacchus, and that afterwards they informed against him, because in a tragedy he had a fling against the mysteries of Ceres.—Art. Æschylus.

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Authors who set up for jesters and burlesque writers, find themselves obliged to divert the public at their own cost, and to play the buffoons against themselves, and to the prejudice of those whom they ought most to spare. Hear how D’Assouci speaks of his mother: “She was a little bit of an Amazon, hasty and passionate, who to make up her want of stature, wore such high pattens that if they had been split and the cork taken out, it would have made good school billet; so that whenever she put them off she lost just one half of her illustrious person

; upon which account my father, who was none of the most witty men, used to say that my mother was so little that she lost herself in bed, and not finding her between the sheets, he complained that she had no body, and that she was all spirit. But on the other side she sang like an angel and played admirably well on the lute; she was endowed with such a wonderful spirit of contradiction, and with such an imperious humour, that not having agreed with my father the advocate, about any thing for the space of forty years, he durst scarce open his mouth any more for fear of exposing himself; and though I was yet very young, I remember that my father, speaking one day of the laws, and my mother having also a mind to speak of them, they had such a furious dispute about a passage of Justinian, that both took sword in hand and fought a duel for the explication of the law, Frater à fratre.”—Art. D’Assouci.

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Charron after having faithfully proposed the objections of the Atheists, refutes them with great application and solidity; but this displeases vulgar authors and even great authors, who have more wit and learning than sincerity. They would always have a man make the enemies of the good cause appear in a languishing and ridiculous equipage, or at least that their strong objections should be confuted by a stronger answer. Sincerity does not allow of the first of those two things, and sometimes the nature of the subject makes the other impossible. I have been a long time surprised to see that those are looked upon as prevaricators who propose great difficulties to themselves, and refute them weakly. What! would you have the answers of a divine about mysteries that are above reason, to be as clear as the objections of a philosopher? From this very thing, that a doctrine is mysterious and incomprehensible, it results necessarily that our reason will oppose it

with very strong arguments, and that it can find no other good solution but God’s authority.

Art. Charron.

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The empire of Venus ought not, like the earth, to be divided into five zones, one torrid, two temperate, and two frigid; they are all torrid zones, with this only difference, of more and less. Never monarchy was more universal than this; no corner of the world has been exempt from the yoke of it: there are some particular persons who aspire to a state of independance, and who even bind themselves by a vow not to acknowledge this sovereign; but they are sometimes the most faithful subjects of that empire. The Pagans professed to believe that the monarchy of Venus extended farther than that of any other deity. Heaven was the lot of Jupiter, Neptune ruled in the sea, and Pluto in hell; but Venus governed in all those three worlds, the whole animated nature being her lot:

Illa, quibus superas omnes, cape tela, Cupido,
Inque Dei pectus celeres molire sagittas,
Cui triplicis cessit fortuna novissima regni.
Tu superos, ipsumque Jovem, tu numina ponti:
Tartara quid cessant? cur non matrisque, tuumque
Victa domas, ipsumque regit qui numina ponti.
Imperium profers! agitur pars tertia mundi.

Ovid. Metam. lib. v, ver. 365.     Go send a conquering dart
At once quite through the gloomy tyrant’s heart.
Great Jove himself, and all the gods above,
Neptune, and all his court submit to love.
Shall hell be free? Enlarge our empire, boy,
Let’s now at length the world’s third part enjoy.

Art. Eremita.

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Some pretend that it was necessary for Luther, Calvin, Farel, and some others to be hot, passionate, and violent; else, say they, they could not have overcome

all opposition. The church was then in the same circumstances as when Jesus Christ said, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”—Art. Fared.

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It is easy at some certain times to pass for a false brother, though one be not so. It is enough to have other notions of things than some men of a hot temper, and of a great and contagious imagination. These men having but little knowledge of others, or even of themselves, for the most part they imagine that they act for the advancement of religion, when they are only acted upon by heat and pride. Their temper makes them averse to all counsels of moderation and patience; nothing pleases them but vigorous proceedings, and such as they think fit to preserve the credit and worldly interest of the party, and this they call a zeal for God’s cause. But this is no great matter, for they sometimes unaccountably injure their neighbour; they believe that he cannot be of another opinion than theirs, but out of treachery. However, there are some cases wherein a man may be fully convinced, that even for temporal interest we ought not to be so unbending. But what do these fiery zealots? they earnestly strive to get moderate men suspected, on which those who will not be suspected, give way to the greater number, and those who continue to oppose them run the risk to draw upon themselves all the mischiefs of the “compelle exire.” Thus two or three powerful men, in a pretty numerous assembly, are enough to obtain a decree, by terrifying those who are of a quiet disposition, with a fear that they will be made odious to the party, and suspected of a base prevarication. What will not men do to avoid a stigma which renders their pains and parts useless?

Art. Ferrier.

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Euripides much loved to deliver moral sentences.

The thing needs no proof; it is but reading what is still extant of his. But if any one is desirous of testimonies for it, let him add to the passage of Quintilian, cited before, these words of Cicero: “Cui (Euripidi) tu quantum credas nescio: ego certe singulos ejus versus singula ejus testimonia puto.” As many verses of Euripides, so many maxims and sentences in Cicero’s opinion. Can it be thought strange after this, that that illustrious orator should prepare himself for death by reading Euripides? It is observed, that the assassins who pursued and murdered him, found him reading in his litter the Medea of Euripides. Now, as the best things spoil a book if they are not managed with discretion, there may, perhaps, have been great reason to condemn, in this poet, the too frequent use of philosophical aphorisms. His Hecuba particularly is found to philosophize to excess and unseasonably.—Art. Euripides.

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Purging and bleeding, which may save the life of a patient, if seasonably used, take it away if they are used unseasonably. The same may be said of passions; whoever designs to cure them must take a proper time for it. Nothing can be more troublesome than certain comforters, who will have, by all means, afflicted persons to confess that they are in the wrong to afflict themselves. The best way to dispose them to hearken to reason is, to give them some advantage. Suffer yourself to be overcome sometimes; do not answer all their reflections, or if you go about it, do it indirectly, and with condescension, and at last be the first that is silent, and keep your arguments for a better opportunity. Time will dispose the sick person to make a better use of your philosophy.

Impatiens animus, nec adhuc tractabilis arte,
   Respuit, atque odio verba monentis habet.
Aggrediar melius tunc, cum sua vulnera tangi
   Jam sinet, et veris vocibus aptus erit.

Quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati
   Flere vetet? non hoc illa monenda loco.
Cum dederit lacrymas, animumque impleverit ægrum;
   Ille dolor verbis emoderandus erit.
Temporis ars medicina fere est: data tempore prosunt,
   Et data non apto tempore vina nocent. Quin etiam accendas vitia, irritesque vetando,
   Temporibus si non aggrediare suis.

Ovid.de Remedia Amor. ver. 123, et seq

Distemper’d minds, distracted with their grief,
Take all for foes who offer them relief;
But when their first fermenting smart is o’er,
They suffer you to probe the ripen’d sore.
'Tis madness, a fond mother to dissuade
From tears, while on his hearse her son is laid.
But when grief’s deluge can no higher swell,
Declining sorrows you’ll with ease repel.
Cures have their times; the best that can be tried,
Inflame the wound, unseas’nably applied.

Tate.

Art. Cratippus.

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The pieces of Æschylus pleased the Athenians less than those of Sophocles, who was much younger than himself. This is a digrace to which the greatest authors are subject. Some raise themselves in such a manner above their rivals, that the public voice loudly proclaims their sovereignty in the science they have cultivated. One reigns in dramatic pieces, another in romances, &c.: unhappily this empire is not always for life. There comes a rising sun, who, by little and little, draws all the applause to himself, and then, the great author, who wore the crown many years, sees himself degraded by a young man, which is as a hundred stabs to him, against which it is but a poor comfort to complain of the ill taste and injustice of the public, and to appeal from them to the judgment of posterity. This is what Æschylus did when he fell. “I consecrate,” said he, “my

works to time.” The poet who describes so well the disadvantages of a long life, ought not to have forgotten that it exposes authors of the first rank to this terrible disgrace. They ought to die as soon as their glory has arrived at its meridian, and not give time to a new star to gain an ascendant over them.

Art. Æschylus.

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The ancients had, as well as we, some battles, of which each party claimed the victory, and for which they returned thanks to heaven with solemn pomp. In some respects, nothing is more easy than for providence to please every body. When people are in war, they seldom own that fortune has been favourable to the enemy; they generally give out that he has been beaten, and has a thousand reasons to be uneasy. If the enemy have had any success, they insult over him for not improving it better: they suppose he had formed a hundred great designs, and that being so far out in his reckoning, he ought to be the object of public laughter. There are no men that want so little to be exhorted to celebrate and rehearse the blessings of God as public news-writers: they might well be excepted out of a canticle that may be made after the pattern of that of the three Hebrew children. They admirably well obey the precept, “rejoice evermore.”—Art. Fabricius.

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The prophet Elijah caused the priests of Baal to be slain, and fire from heaven to fall down on the soldiers of his king. Those doctors who are against a toleration, do not care to be put in mind that Jesus Christ hath abolished this furious spirit. I do not wonder that they cannot endure to be deprived of the authority of this example; for what can be more strongly urged in favour of massacres, on the account of religion, than the fiery zeal of Elijah? A man who had no authority in the government, no

public employ, no power of punishing; a man, I say, whose province was, only to prophecy, gathers together the prophets of Baal, to the number of four hundred and fifty; he adds to them four hundred prophets of the groves, who had the honour to eat at the queen’s table. He convinces them, by a miracle, that they worshipped a false god, and immediately orders that they should be seized, and that a particular care should be taken that none should escape, and causes all their throats to be cut, without so much as asking king Ahab, who was there, his consent, or admonishing them to repent. It could not be said that they had acted against their consciences, for they had not exposed themselves to this scrutiny, and had credit enough with the queen to have declined the prophet Elijah’s challenge, had they believed Baal to be a false deity. Besides, they invoked their god with all the zeal imaginable, and, in honour to him, miserably mangled their flesh with their knives; they hoped, no doubt, to be favourably heard. Divines are obliged to acknowledge, in order to justify Elijah, that he invisibly received an extraordinary and special commission from God to put these prophets to death, and that God revealed to him that they were reprobates whom no exhortations to repentance could move.—Art. Elijah.

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Zealots would have a man more determinate and resolute than Bartolus; they would have him do as they do, that is, firmly embrace one opinion, and anathematize all others. They cannot conceive that a man can be of any religion, and preserve himself of a cool temper when he compares it with others, or keep the least grain of equity for the followers of heresy.

Art. Drusius.

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I remember a reflexion of Mezeray, which is not an ill one: “There being as few great crimes,” says he, 11 5

“as heroic virtues, carried to the utmost length, these men, having begun one without necessity, had not power to commit a second, which was necessary, to cover the first.” Thus God hinders the progress of wickedness, by not permitting it to be carried to an extremity, and he generally disposes of things in such a manner that those, who have an unbounded boldness, have narrow understandings; and those, who have a genius to contrive a design, have no courage to put it into execution. Thus oppressed innocence has time to breathe, and is oftentimes even delivered. “Hoc uno modo, Judices, saepe multorum improbitate depressa veritas emergit, et innocentiae defensio interclusa respirat: quod aut ii, qui ad fraudem callidi sunt, non tantum audent quantum excogitant: aut illi, quorum eminet audacia atque projecta est, à consiliis malitiæ deseruntur: quod si aut confidens astutia, aut callida esset audacia, vix ullo obsisti modo posset. Cicero, Orat. pro Cluentio, cap. 65. ⁴¹ By this only means, truth, crushed by the oppression of multitudes, often lifts its head afresh, and the cause of injured innocence, that was ready to expire, receives new breath; because either, those, who are expert in cunning, have not the courage to execute what they contrive, or that they, who dare even to madness, are destitute of cunning, whereas it would be scarcely possible to withstand the united force of courage and cunning.” Extreme boldness, joined to ingenious and inventive malice, would be an irresistible torrent: a thunder-bolt that would crush whatsoever it should strike. No throne could be supported against a faction armed with those bad talents. For crimes are maintained only by crimes.—Art. Edward IV.

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Sarah, the wife of Abraham, may be compared with Stratonice, the wife of Dejotarus. Stratonice,

wife of Dejotarus, was barren, and being informed that her husband passionately desired to have children, that might succeed him in his kingdom, she advised him to make use of another woman, and promised him to own the children he should get by her. He admired that counsel, and declared that he would do what she pleased. Upon which she made choice of a very beautiful maid among the captives, dressed and adorned her, and presented her to Dejotarus. She owned all the children that were born in that manner, and educated them tenderly and splendidly.—Dejotarus.

Servius assures us, that in ancient times they kindled no fire upon the altar, but drew down fire from heaven by prayer and supplication. “Apud majores aræ non incendebantur, sed ignem divinum precibus eliciebant, qui incendebat altaria.” Servius, in Æneid. lib. xii. ver. 200. ⁴² Pausanias gives an account of a surprising thing he was an eye-witness to. There were two cities in Lydia, that practised what I am going to mention. Each of these two cities had a temple, in which was a chapel designed for the ceremony I am speaking of. Ashes of a particular colour were seen upon the altar in this chapel. A magician came in, and having laid dry wood upon the hearth, and having a tiara upon his head, he repeated certain prayers out of a book; as soon as this was done, immediately a very bright flame was seen to rise out of the hearth, without any person putting fire to the wood. This man was bolder than the Greek priests, who make the people believe that, every year at Easter, they gather in a chapel of the holy Sepulchre a celestial fire sent from God in a miraculous manner. They durst do nothing publicly, the ceremony is all performed in secret. As the Latin priests have hot adopted this

cheat, they are the first to ridicule it, and they boldly tell the Greeks, when they are going to shut themselves up in the chapel for this pretended miracle, “You would be strangely disappointed if your steel should not prove good.”—Art. Egnatia.

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One day when the people of Athens desired Euripides to retrench a certain passage from one of his tragedies, he came upon the stage, and exclaimed, “I do not compose my works to learn of you, but to teach you.” He once complained to the poet Alcestis, that in the three days last past, he had not been able to make above three verses, though he had studied with great application. The other answered him with a great air of vanity, that he had made about a hundred with a great deal of ease; but replied Euripides, “There is this difference between mine and yours; that mine will run through the whole extent of after-ages, and yours shall not last above three days.” Valerius Maximus has interpreted all this very favourably, for he has found in it no spice of pride, but only such a reasonable confidence, as a great man ought to have in his merit. Nay, he affirms, that, as to the first particular, the Athenians made the same judgment of it.

Art. Euripides.

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Comenius said that the reign of a thousand years was to begin in the year 1672, or in the year 1673. So that there is scarcely any body but believes he died very seasonably, since he avoided the confusion of seeing the vanity of his prophecies. I am persuaded that he did not gain much by it. He was so used to such disappointments, and minded so little what people would say of it, that he could have borne this last check without any trouble. This class of gentlemen are of an admirable constitution; nothing puts them out of countenance: they appear as boldly in company after

the expiration of the time as before; they fear neither railleries, nor the most serious complaints: they are always ready to begin again: in a word, they are proof against the justest mortifications. We must not altogether lay the fault of it on the particular turn of their wit, and of their inclination; the public is more to be blamed for it than they are, because of its prodigious indulgence. It is a common saying, that God forgives every thing, and that men forgive nothing: but that maxim is false, with respect to the commentators on the revelation: it is very probable that God has not the same indulgence, as the public, for the boldness wherewith they handle his oracles, and expose them to the contempt of infidels. A learned divine observes, that Comenius lost nothing of his credit, though he had deceived the people a hundred times by his visions; he always passed for a great prophet; so true it is that men are pleased to be deceived in some things.—Art. Comenius.

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It is not true, that whoever goes about to take off the impressions of religion, does a thing acceptable to a tyrant. Those who are so ignorant and so unreasonable, as not to ascribe the origin of religion to the impressions that God himself has communicated to men’s minds, find no supposition more plausible than to say, that those who had a mind to govern have invented religion, to keep the people more easily under the yoke. History affords us a thousand instances of the advantages that princes have drawn from the superstitions of the people, whether they were to be encouraged, or terrified. An oracle of Delphi, an answer of the Augurs, the explication of a prodigy, have been of great use in a thousand cases for the interest of sovereigns: so that, though by the same machines people may be made to revolt, it is nevertheless probable, that because all the inconveniences that may arise from an invention cannot

be foreseen, able and cunning sovereigns would have forged a religion, if they had not found one already established.—Art. Critias.

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Cotys, mentioned by Plutarch, was a passionate man, who corrected his servants cruelly when they committed any fault. He had a noble present sent him, which was, some very fine vessels of earthenware, adorned with fine paintings: he rewarded him who brought them, but caused them all to be broken, because he foresaw that his servants could not avoid breaking so brittle a matter as that; which if they should do, he could not forbear to punish them too severely.—Art. Cotys.

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I think authors who cite much, may be reduced to two classes. Some there are that content themselves with pillaging modern authors, and collecting into one body the compilations of several others who have written upon the same subject. These never verify any thing, or have recourse to the originals; they do not even examine what goes before, or what follows in the author, which serves them for an original; they do not write out the passages, but only refer the printers to the pages of such printed books, whence these passages are to be taken. It cannot be denied, that this method of making books is very easy, and that this sort of writers can soon fill up ten great volumes, without much fatiguing themselves. There are other quoters who trust none but themselves; they are for verifying every thing, they always run to the fountain, they examine into the scope of the author, they are not contented with the passage they have occasion for, but consider attentively what goes before, and what follows. They endeavour to make fine applications, and to connect well their authorities: they compare them together, and either reconcile them, or shew wherein they

clash. Besides, these may be men who are religiously scrupulous in matters of fact, not to advance any thing without proof. If they say, that such a Greek philosopher believed this or that, that such a Roman senator or captain followed such and such maxims, they presently produce evidence for it; and because, upon some occasions, the singularity of the thing requires several testimonies, they therefore gather many. I will not scruple to say of this method of composing, that it is a hundred times more laborious than that of our Epicurus; and that one might write in less time a book of a thousand pages, according to this last method, than a book of four hundred pages, according to the first. An example will make this plainer. Let an able man undertake to prove, that such a father of the church was of a certain opinion. I am sure he will bestow more time in gathering the passages necessary to his purpose, than making a rambling discourse upon those passages. Having once found his authorities and quotations, which perhaps will not fill up six pages, and which may have cost him a month’s labour in collecting, he will make up in two mornings’ work twenty pages in reasonings, objections, and answers to these objections: and consequently, what flows from our genius, costs sometimes less labour than what we are called to compute. I am sure that Corneille would have written a tragedy in less time than he could have answered the criticisms made upon it, by collecting a great many authorities, even supposing his defence to contain no more pages than his tragedy. Heinsius, perhaps, bestowed more time upon justifying against Balzachis Herodes Infanticida, than a Spanish metaphysician does upon a great volume which he writes out of his own stock. I will not examine the question, which of the two is to be preferred? I will content myself to say, that authors, who borrow nothing from others, are generally less instructive, than those who display and scatter their collections. A good thought, whoever be the author of it, will still be better than a nonsensical one of one’s own, whatever they may say to the contrary, who boast of having every thing at home, and borrowing of nobody. I add, that there is not less wit, nor less invention, in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.—Art. Epicurus.

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The answer which Drusus gave to an architect has been much spoken of. It is a fine thought. He promised him to dispose in such a manner the apartments of his house, that nobody should be able to overlook him. Rather, said he to the architect, build it so that every body may be a witness of what I do at home.—Art. Drusus.

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We find that the trial by fire was often practised in several places of Europe, and that the persons who underwent it, came off with honour. Why has this custom been so long disused? Is it because it has been found out to be subject to illusion, and that, through human artifice, it might be employed to countenance vice? If so, we ought not to account innocent those men and women who went over the red hot ploughshares without receiving any hurt. Or is it because we must not tempt God? but why, then, did they tempt him in those days? why are not those condemned who authorised that custom? Why should we believe that God wrought a miracle to manifest a person to be innocent, who did not deserve that favour; since that person had recourse to a crime, viz. that of tempting God? It is very hard to resolve all these difficulties, without the interposition of an occasional cause; but, with the help of this hypothesis, it were easy to resolve them: we need only suppose an intelligence who should protect innocence, and who

by his desires should have determined the first mover not to follow, upon this occasion, the general law of the communication of motion; we may next suppose, not as the heathens did, that this sort of intelligences die, but that they have other offices assigned them, and that then they cease to preside at these trials. Thus some miracles might be in vogue in one age, and cease in another. We must, however, conclude nothing from this against the immutability of general laws. We might perhaps be mistaken, if we thought that, among spiritual substances, the soul of man only is subject to change.—Art. Emma.

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Pride is said to be the general fault of those who pretend to be inspired; and indeed, that favour is of so great a value, that it is no wonder if those who persuade themselves that God honours them with such a distinction, use the ordinary teachers with the greatest contempt; but, at the same time, they discover that they boast wrongfully of being inspired; for, if God did them that great honour, he would not refuse them the spirit of Christian humility; they would not conceive so great an indignation against all those that will not believe in their dreams.

Art. Comenius.

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For the following little piece of learning we are indebted to Erasmus. Upon the proverb, Κυνὸς δικην. Canis vindictam. Adag. Chil. I, Cent. vii, n. 47, p. m. 245. ⁴³ “There was, in Macedonia, a village called the Thracian village, because it was inhabited by people of that nation. A dog of Archelaus, happening one day to stray, came to this village, where he was sacrificed and eaten, according to the custom of the inhabitants. The king, being informed of it, condemned them to pay a talent as a fine; not being in a condition to raise this sum, they begged Euripides to get it remitted, and by his intercession

they obtained their request; but he was punished for it not long after, for he was killed in a forest by the king’s dogs, and they were persuaded that the dogs which destroyed him were descended from the dog that the Thracians sacrificed. This gave rise to a proverb among the Macedonians.” See the foregoing note. ⁴⁴ Here is another piece of erudition of the same Erasmus; he pretends, “that the proverb, ' promeri canes,’ owes its origin to the revenge which Promeras, an officer of Archelaus, took upon Euripides for an ill turn that poet had done him. He set the dogs upon him, which tore him to pieces.” Erasmus forgot to tell us what we learn from Stephanus Byzantinus. “The unfortunate Euripides, being very ill used by dogs in a place of Macedonia called Bormiscus, he did not die upon the spot, but never recovered of those wounds.” I make no doubt but the 597th and 598th verses of Ovid’s Ibis, upon which M. de Boisseau had no observations to make, refer to the tragical end of our poet:

Utque cothurnatum vatem tutela Diauæ
Dilaniet vigilum te quoque turba canum.

Thine be the fate of that fam’d buskin'd bard
Butcher’d by dogs, Diana’s surly guard.

Art. Euripides.

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I need not tell my readers that if, on the one hand, women, generally speaking, are much more tender than men; it is true, on the other, that those of them who are cruel and ambitious, exceed men in those two vices. “Optimi corruptio pessima.” When luxury is the reigning vice, it is much worse; for then they often spare neither the lives of their husbands nor children.—Art. Eurydice.

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Ælian having said, “that the laws of Mantinea were most just, and as good as the laws of the Locrians,

Cretans, Lacedemonians, and Athenians,” adds, “that he who gave those laws to the people of Mantinea, was Nicodorus the wrestler, very famous for his victories; but, in his old age, applying himself to the framing of laws, he did his country a much more useful service, than the proclamations of the prize he was honoured with could do. This is not all: Ælian observes that, according to the common opinion, those laws were composed by Diagoras, who gave them, ready drawn up, to his friend Nicodorus; in short, Ælian declares that he could say a great deal of Nicodorus, but he forbears, lest the praises he might bestow on him, should seem to belong also to Diagoras. This is very remarkable: a downright open Atheist giving laws to a state, as just as the laws of Solon or Lycurgus. On the other side, behold a priest, who sets up for a historian, and who suppresses the praise that Nicodorus has justly deserved, for fear the glory should redound to Diagoras. Not that Diagoras did not deserve to partake of the praise; but he denied the Deity, and consequently the historian must not be equitable to him; he must prevaricate with the laws of history, since, by this, he deprives an Atheist of what is due to him. We might be more astonished at this depraved morality, if it were not remembered, that a Pagan priest is the author. Wretched men! you look upon yourselves as necessary to the Deity; you think he stands in need of the political use you make of injuries and applauses: you would not think so, if you had any faith in the oracles of Job.—Art. Diagoras.

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It is not only in these days that learned men complain, that the booksellers choose rather to print bad books than good ones; they should not complain of the booksellers, but of the readers; for, if the sale of good books were as profitable as that of others, no doubt the booksellers would prefer good copies before

bad ones. I call those good books that are truly so, and not those that are only so in the booksellers’ style.—Art. Craterius.

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I make no doubt that if the ancients should be compared with the moderns, taking their thoughts singly and by themselves, one might easily be convinced that the advantage does not lie on the side of the latter; for I do not believe that any body has had any noble and fine thoughts in this age, but what may be found in the books of the ancients. The most sublime metaphysical and moral conceptions, which we admire in some moderns, are to be met with in the books of the ancient philosophers; and therefore our age cannot pretend to the superiority, unless a whole work of a modern be compared with a whole work of an ancient: for can any one doubt that a work, which equals other works, when the fine parts of it are compared with the fine parts of them, will be inferior to them, if the weak things contained in it are more numerous, and more gross than the weak things contained in the others. Can any one doubt that, though Des Cartes had found all parts of his system in the books of the ancients, he would be more admirable than they, since he knew how to join together so many scattered things, and how to form a methodical system out of several materials, which had no connexion one with another?—Art. Corbinelli.

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Clemency, that virtue so amiable, so useful, so necessary, and so divine, becomes pernicious on certain occasions. There are some evils which require the rigours of an exemplary punishment: the practice of moderation becomes unseasonable, and opens a door to new sufferings: this is true, not only in political governments, but also in the republic of letters. Against such authors as these, Boccalini should have made Apollo hold his extraordinary session, and

sitting on his bed of justice, alluding to the custom of France, summon all the forces of Parnassus. He ought to suppose, at least, that Apollo sends out against them the Praetorian guards, or the marshalsea of German poets, to apprehend or keep them close prisoners; this being necessary for the security of the literary highways.—Art. Colomies.

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Some, perhaps, may wonder how Epicurus, notwithstanding his fine morals, is fallen into such an infamy as has rendered both his sect and his memory odious, for many ages, wherever he has been heard of. Upon this, I make three small observations; the first is, that in this, as in many other things, we may see the power of fatality: some men are happy, others are unhappy; that is the best reason that can be given of their various fortune. In the second place, Epicurus’s competition with the famous philosopher who was the founder of the Stoics, must needs have had ill consequences. The Stoics possessed a great severity in their morals: now, to contend with those men was much the same disadvantage, at that time, as to quarrel, in this age, with bigots. They interested religion in their quarrel! they insinuated their fears that youth would be perverted; they alarmed all good men; their accusations were regarded and credited; the people easily persuading themselves that true zeal and austere maxims go always together: now, as there were no greater defamers than these men, it must not be thought strange if, by their invectives against Epicurus, by their pious frauds and forged letters, they have made disadvantageous impressions, which have lasted a long time. I say, in the third place, that it was an easy thing to give an ill sense to the tenets of that philosopher, and to scare honest men with the word “voluptuousness,” of which he made use. If people had spoken of it with the explanations he added to it, nobody had been alarmed;

but they carefully removed all the explications that might be favourable to him; and, after all, there were some epicureans who made an ill use of his doctrine. They did not debauch themselves in his school, but had the cunning to shelter their debaucheries under the authority of so great a name. “Their revels,” says Seneca, “are not owing to the instigation of Epicurus, but, being abandoned to vice, they hide their luxury in the bosom of philosophy, and throw themselves into the arms of that sect which espouses pleasure. Nor do they consider how narrow and jejune, for such indeed I look upon it, the pleasure of Epicurus is; but fly to the bare name, thinking to find a shelter and protection under it.” Consult Gassendus, who unfolds this marvellously well, and shows how many great men, carried away with the torrent, have from age to age, followed established prejudices, without examining things to the bottom. This is the case of several fathers; but Gregory Nazianzen did not suffer himself to be imposed upon, and I remember I have read, in Origen, that the followers of Epicurus forbore adultery as much as the Stoics, though upon a different motive.—Art. Epicurus.

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It is very unjust to insult a whole body of men, upon pretence that some authors among them discover signs of a little too much prejudice. A man does a great injury to his own party without doors by employing, in its defence, all sorts of reasons, good or bad, without ever retracting what has been once said. But this conduct is far from being against the interest within doors; it nourishes prejudices and confidence in the minds of the people, and inspires them with the passions of those who dispute. These people take great care of making any steps from which any advantage may be taken against them, by their own party, never divesting themselves of the right of alleging this or that, such or such, pretensions.

This multiplies their writings; this animates and warms them. It is not for the temporal interest of any communion, that all the members of it should be men of judgment; passionate people, who follow only a spirit of faction, humanly speaking, do a thousand good services; therefore it is beneficial to them to have some of these infatuated agents among them; it is a necessary evil.—Art. Drusius.

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If the motives of most men’s services for one another were known, it would appear that the intention to do good has a less share in them, than a design to mortify others. You recommend a person ardently, you protect him, you advance him swiftly. Is this because you love him, and are engaged by his merit? There are two answers to this question; one from the mouth, the other from the heart; the first declares for the affirmative; but the heart answers in this manner: I raise such a one to the utmost of my power, in order to humble another; what I procure for one, is just so much taken from the good fortune of another. The maxim of physicians may be extended to political actions: “Generatio unius est corruptio alterius; the generation of one thing is the corruption of another.” But whereas, nature’s direct intention is generation, and destruction is but by accident, in all the offices of civil life, they seem to have destruction directly in view: generation is the means; destruction the end.—Art. Conon.

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It is a very great misfortune for a sect to have a writer for their apologist who has a vast, quick, and proud wit, and who does not only aspire to the glory of a fine, but also of a fruitful pen. The main and only aim of such a writer is to confute any adversary whatsoever, whom he undertakes to oppose; and as he labours more for his own reputation than for the interest of the cause, he minds chiefly the particular

thoughts that his imagination supplies him with. It matters but little whether they are agreeable to the principles of his party or not; he is well enough pleased if they serve to elude an objection, or to tire his adversaries. Dazzled with his inventions, he does not see the wrong side of them; he does not foresee the advantages that the same enemies, or another kind of antagonists will draw from them. He is only for a present advantage, and does not trouble himself with things to come. Moreover, heaping book upon book sometimes against one sect and sometimes against another, he cannot avoid contradicting himself, he cannot argue coherently; by which means he betrays the interests of his party, and by striving to run from the one extreme he falls into another, and successively into both.

Art. Chrysippus.

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The care Rome took to extend its language, succeeded so well, that in Plutarch’s time there were very few who did not speak Latin, and Libanius expresses great concern that the Greek tongue would be lost, the sovereignty belonging to those whose natural language was Latin. The popes concurred with the princes in the same care; and if the emperor Marcian, who was a Greek, preferred the Latin tongue to the Greek in the council of Chalcedon, where he spoke first in Latin and then in Greek, we also find that the pope’s deputies at the councils, always read their dispatches in Latin, and they looked upon it as a piece of complaisance, whenever, at the request of all the fathers, they suffered them to be explained in Greek. The public records were made in Latin for several ages, almost all over the west, and even after they had withdrawn their obedience from Rome in temporals. I refer you to Melchior Inchofer’s book "Historia Sacræ Latinitatis,” where you will find several curious things, and among others this; that it is

probable that Jesus Christ sometimes spoke Latin, seeing he paid so exact an obedience to the civil laws, and the Romans having every where established their language, it is not likely that he would exempt himself from this law. Besides, being examined in Latin by Pontius Pilate, without doubt he answered in Latin.—Art. Claudius.

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Love has made abundance of people of both sexes commit a thousand faults, whereof they have seen the shame and danger so clearly, as to have endeavoured to prevent them, by calling reason to their assistance, and making many wishes against their passion. It was natural for them to conclude, that they were not the cause of their evil conduct, inasmuch as they had a reasonable understanding, and a soul that was free, and mistress of its will. This first conclusion led them to another, which was, that some cause that was external and superior to all their forces swayed them. This second conclusion made them draw this third, that some god was an external and necessitating cause. This was the original of the pretended divinity of Venus and Cupid; and because we find by experience, that jealousy, envy, avarice, drunkenness, the desire of revenge, and many other passions, make men commit a thousand things which reason condemns, and which are even contrary to the true interest of self-love, and which one would not wish for, it has been believed that the gods instigated us to these things. The Heathens did not accuse them, therefore, because they made no reflections, but rather because they made a great many observations upon what passed in the soul. If the Pagans had had the just idea of God that we have, which represents him to us as a being perfectly holy, they would have secured themselves from that rash judgment; but attributing to the gods the same faults that men are subject to, nothing hindered them from believing the

gods urged men on to evil, and rendered the light of reason ineffectual, sometimes by a flattering view oF pleasure, which necessitated the will; at other times by importunate pain, which had the same effect. Paris was agreeable to Helen, and Jason to Medea; they could not think of their union with these objects, without feeling beforehand an incredible satisfaction, nor could they consider themselves as separated from them, without feeling a great torment. These impressions depended not on their liberty, and were no more under its command, than the agreeable or disagreeable sensations we feel upon tasting honey or gall. All that these two women could do, was to oppose reason and duty to these two foretastes; feeble weapons, if Paris and Jason continued to raise the same ideas and the same impressions, since in that case they would captivate their will sooner or later, and extort a consent from it, whatever desire it had to be unsubdued, and to pass from love to indifference. Useless are the vows, weak the velleities in the presence of those foretastes I have spoken of, and whose cause proceeds not from ourselves. Whence proceeds it then? The Pagans might well look for it on all hands; they could not find it upon earth, and for that reason they attributed it to the gods. This they might do two ways, either by supposing a Cupid who wounded the heart, or by supposing that the author of human bodies had adjusted the parts of them with such artifice, that, for example, that of Jason should excite in the heart and head of Medea those motions of the spirits on which love mechanically and inevitably depends. According to this last principle, if Helen or Medea fell in love, he must be blamed who has fashioned and arranged the parts of their bodies; just as if a chimney should smoke when the wind blows; this must not be imputed to the wind, but to the mason who made the chimney.—Art. Helen.

It is a long time since our ladies have ceased to be of the same temper with the Dido of the great Roman poet. That good princess’s great sorrow was, that her perfidious lover went from her without leaving one of his race behind him, and if she had had a little babe, or at least had found herself pregnant, her affliction had been a great deal less.

Saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset
Ante fugam soboles, si quis mihi parvulus aulâ
Luderet Æneas, qui te tantum ore referret;
Non equidem omnino capta aut deserta viderer.

Virg. Æu. lib. iv. ver. 327.

Oh! that---------
E’er from my sight for ever thou wert gone,
Thy kind embrace had bless’d me with a son;
Some young Æneas, in whose lovely face
His father’s features fondly I might trace.
Some comfort in thy absence this would be,
Nor were poor Dido quite undone by thee.

Such a tender sentiment would now a days be exploded, even in a romance, it is so contrary to custom. The greatest sorrow of those kind-hearted ladies, to whom a gallant breaks his promise, is, not for having granted him more than they ought, but for not having been able to prevent the consequences. Pregnancy, or a child, are such convictions of dishonour as no chicanery can elude. They are speaking proofs, “et luce meridiana clariores:” they are witnesses without reproach, "et omni exceptione majores,” Such is, therefore, the principal source of a lady’s misfortune and despair.—Art. Garnache.

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It must be confessed it is great unhappiness that the fate of people, their favour, their disgrace, should depend upon the fancy of a coquet, who scandalizes a whole kingdom by the criminal conversation she openly maintains with the prince; but if any body

should pretend to be surprized and astonished at it, and should cry out, “ô tempora, ô mores,” he would justly pass for a stranger to the world. For he would admire, as an extraordinary thing, what was always very common and is so still, and, according to all     appearances, will be so to the' end of the world. What comforts the discontented mind is, that these coquet powers are very much exposed to the wheel of fortune.—Art. Estampes.

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When M. Menage supposes, in his “Requeste des Dictionnaires” that Mad. de Gournai was extraordinarily concerned for the disgrace of the old words which the gentlemen of the French academy suppressed, he did not make use of a fiction, for it is very true that this lady was very angry at this change of language. Doubtless many persons said that Mad. de Gournai, being affected with the distemper of old people, condemned the reformation of the language, only because it was the production of young authors, or because she could not approve of it without owning that, at her great age, she wanted to go to school again. But all things duly considered, this gentlewoman was not so much in the wrong as is imagined; and it were to be wished that the best authors of that time had vigorously withstood the proscription of many words which have nothing of harshness in them, and would serve to vary the expression, to avoid verses, consonancies, and ambiguities. A false delicacy, which was too much indulged, has very much impoverished the French language. The best writers complain of it; even those who are least in want of words, and whose fruitful genius is able to supply that defect. See the reflection of M. de la Bruyere. The cause of the evil does not wholly lie in the inconstancy of living languages which the ancients have experienced and very well described. There is, I know not what plot in the matter, which proceeds not so much

from the readers that are authors, as from those that are not. The latter give themselves the pleasure of criticising, without knowing what trouble there is in composing. Those that are sensible of it are more indulgent to words. I except two sorts of authors: the young, and those who write but a little piece in two or three years. A young author, who hardly reads any books but such as are the newest, calls only fine language the terms and expressions he finds in them. Woe to every word and phrase which he finds elsewhere. “This is a word of the old court, ” says he, “it begins to grow obsolete.” As for a writer of half a page a day, he has not time to be sensible of the trouble occasioned by the suppression of abundance of expressions, which were good in the reign of Henry IV and Lewis XIII. For this reason, he pretends to be disgusted at all the words that are suspected of being old; but if he were to compose a long-winded piece, and at a quicker rate, he would not be so squeamish. The difficulty of the labour, the intricacy of the repetitions, the almost unavoidable necessity of rhiming in prose, &c., would discover to him the prejudice that is done to authors by impoverishing the language they make use of.

Art. Gournai.

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It is a truth confirmed by the experience of all ages, that one of the surest means to attract the sex, and make them run after men, is to set up fraternities of an austere reformation, and to make a great shew of strict devotion in certain conventicles. Those who trace events to their causes, have not forgotten to meditate on the reasons of this. They divide into two principal classes those female scholars. Some go to that school out of a good principle, being led by devotion, which is innate to the sex; others have heard a thousand times that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in these religious founders; that they are 12 3

men like the rest, and that they play the hypocrites only to make love without scandal, and under the  cloak of secrecy. This is the reason a woman hopes to find a lucky hour among those pretenders to devotion, and is eager to put herself under their direction, with whom she may lose nothing with regard to pleasure, and get a great deal as to her reputation. Women even hope, that in case such men should not be hypocrites, they may have the address powerfully and victoriously to tempt them; for, of all vices, none is more untameable and ungovernable than concupiscence. As for the she-scholars of the other class, they conceive so great a veneration, and even so great an affection for the pretended man of God, that they blind themselves in his favour. If he find it necessary to persuade them that there is no sin in doing some things, he insensibly turns them that way, and at worst, their tenderness does not suffer them to resist his desires. However it be, there never was a head of a sect, or a founder of a conventicle, let the things practised there be ever so abominable, but found very tractable disciples among the other sex, and when we see how solicitous these men are to draw in women, one must have a great deal of charity not to believe, that the scope of their devotion rather centres in the body, which they have received from nature, than in the salvation of their soul.

Art. Fratricelli.

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Most of the gentlemen in France come from a village; they are born in some castle, seated near some small lordship belonging to their father. And there are several families without a title, and who never appeared at court, nor ever had any considerable employment in their province, who, nevertheless, are of a most ancient nobility, can produce pedigrees of three or four hundred years standing, and are related, though, perhaps, at a great distance, to houses that bear the most magnificent titles.—Art. Gardie.

Pagan authors do not deny that naked women appeared before all the people at the Floral games, and they say, that once, Cato assisting at those games, and perceiving that his presence hindered the people from demanding those naked spectacles as usual, retired that he might not interrupt the feast. The people, at the sight of this condescension, followed him with repeated acclamations, and afterwards, they did according to custom, “Eodem (Marco Catone) Ludos Florales, quos Messius aedilis faciebat, spectante, populus, ut Mimae nudarentur, postulare erubuit: quod cum ex Favonio, amicissimo sibi, una sedente, cognovisset, dicessit è theatro, ne praesentia sua spectaculi consuetudinem impediret. Quem abeuntem ingenti plauso populus prosecutus, priscum morem jocorum in scenam revocavit; confessus, plus se majestatis uni tribuere, quam universo sibi vindicare.— The same Cato being present at the Floral games, which Messius, the edile, exhibited, the people had so much modesty as not to require that the courtezans should be stripped, which, when he understood from Favonius, his intimate friend, who sat by him, he left the theatre, lest his presence might be a hindrance to the usual spectacle. The people followed him with loud acclamations, and then proceeded according to custom, declaring they had a greater regard for the majesty of that one man than for that of the whole assembly.'' Martial justly laughs at this behaviour of Cato. Why did he go to those games, since he knew what was practised there? Did he go there only to go out again? This is what the poet reproaches him with. But he forgot the most material part, which is, that Cato ought not to have withdrawn, since he observed that his presence was so necessary to correct an ill custom.—Art. Flora.

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Francis I was ill served by his own mother. She was of the house of Savoy. I will only speak of two

things, which she did to the prejudice of France. She got the money which had been promised to Lautrec, governor of the Milanese, which occasioned the loss of that country, and when she heard Francis I, in a rage for this loss, ask his treasurer what was become of that money, she point blank denied that it wad ever represented to her for what use it was designed. The lie that she gave this poor treasurer was the cause that he was hanged. What mischief did she not do to France, because she had a mind to marry Charles de Bourbon? Mad that her advances were slighted, she persecuted that prince with a thousand vexatious law-suits, which exasperated him so much, that he went over to the emperor, and commanded his armies in Italy against France, and even against Francis I himself, at the battle of Pavia.

Art. Francis I.

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Beauty without the charms of wit and language, is of no great force; and if it make any conquests, it is after the manner of those brave generals, who quickly subdue a province, but know not how to keep it: the empire of the fair is at least as much maintained by the charms of wit, as by those of the face. These are two sorts of graces that stand in need of one another, and mutually perform good offices to each other. Some insipid and ridiculous discourses would be extremely distasteful, if the beauty of the person did not lend to them I know not what charms to adorn them: and some beauties of the body would make no impression, if they did not borrow charms from the graces of the mind. These are assistances that are reciprocally given. But as the wit is most times the principal instrument in preserving the conquest, and very frequently in making it, it may be asserted to be that which contributes most to the establishing the dominion of beauty.

The poet that assures us, there is no less force required to preserve than to obtain a conquest,

Non minor est virtus, quam quærere, parta tueri:
Casus inest illis; hic erit artis opus.

Ovid de Arte Amandi, lib. ii. ver. 13.

Not less the boast to keep, than to acquire:
Chance may bestow; to keep, will art require,—

is one of the greatest legislators in the empire of love; and he applies that sentence to the case we are now treating of. Nay, he goes farther, he will have the acquisition to be less difficult than the preservation.

Nunc mihi, si quando, Puer et Cytherêa, fovete:
   Nunc Erato: nam tu nomen amoris habes.
Magna paro; quas possit amor remanere per artes
   Dicere, tam vasto pervagus orbe puer.

Ovid. de Arte Amandi, lib. ii. ver. 15.

Thy aid, bright goddess of the Cyprian shore,
And, Erato, thy favour I implore. Vast my design, to fix love’s fleeting joy,
And shew what arts confine the wanton boy.

This is likewise the opinion of many historians, concerning the progress of arms. Plus est provinciam retinere, quam facere. Flor. lib. ii. cap. xvii. ⁴⁵—Art. Estampes.

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The syllables of the name of Euripides were not fit for Latin verse. Floridus Sabinus, in his answer te Beroaldus, who had abused Euripides, thus observes: “And though Virgil mentioned Sophocles in this verse, ‘ Sola Sophocloeo tua,’ &c. I do not imagine it was done in preference to Euripides, but because the word was more proper for heroic verse. Propertius in his verses to Lynceus the poet acts similarly. Propertius did not mention Æschylus

as superior to others, for we know him to have been often rude and incorrect; but because a derivative from his name would make up the measure of the verse. When Horace speaks thus,

Serus enim Græcis admovit lumina chartis,
Et post panics bella quietus quærere cæpit,
Quid Sophocles, quid Thespis, et Æschylus utile ferrent.

Hor. Epist. i. ver. 161.

Till, Carthage ruin'd, she grew soft in peace,
And then enquired what weighty Sophocles,
What Æschylus, what Thespis taught the age,
What good, what profit did commend the stage.

Could his reason for not mentioning Euripides be that he thought him inferior both to Æschylus and Thespis? This Beroaldus himself, though asleep, would not affirm.” Mr Barnes also adopts this reason: “though Virgil bestows so remarkable a compliment on Sophocles, and does not so much as mention Euripides, this is not so much owing to his own opinion (for, as I have proved in the annotations, he has frequently imitated him) as to the restraint of metre, since, as I have before observed, Euripides is a word very improper for heroic verse, both in Greek and Latin.” The God of verse himself, the Delphian Apollo, was forced to submit to the laws of quantity. He found no other expedient than to renounce hexameter verse, and answer in iambics, when he was to name Euripides. So that if he had known only how to make hexameters, he must have suppressed the definitive sentence which adjusted the precedence between three illustrious persons. “Nor,” continues Barnes, “may it be foreign to this controversy to mention the answer which the Pythian God is said to have given to Chærephon the tragic poet, when he consulted him concerning his friend Socrates:

Σοψὸς Σοφοκλῆς, σοφώτερός γ’ Εὐριπίδης,
Ανδρων δ' ἁπάντων Σωκρατης σοφώτατος.

That is to say, Sophocles is wise, Euripides is more so, but the wisest of all men is Socrates. Giraldus wonders that the priestess of Delphi should make use of iambics for this answer, and not of hexameters, according to custom. But she was forced to deviate from custom, since necessity has no law: Euripides and Socrates are two names altogether unfit for heroic verse. All the muses in a body could never bend them to it. Now who can say it is of no great importance to have one name rather than another? Here is Euripides, who had perhaps a greater share in the esteem of Virgil, and the rest of the poets at the court of Augustus, than Sophocles; he is, I say, deprived of this advantage because they could not bring his name into their hexameters, and on account of this impossibility they were forced to immortalize, to his prejudice, those that were judged inferior to him: but the laws of verse pleaded in their favour. This is one of those conflicts between rhime and reason so well described by Boileau. Horace, being to name a little city of Italy, was not able to do it, but was constrained to describe it by certain characters: the name of it was Equotutium which could not be brought into an hexameter.

Quatuor bine rapimnr viginti et millia rhedis
Mansari oppidulo, quod versa dicere non est,
Signis per facile est.

Hor. Sat. v. lib. i. v. 86.

Hence four and twenty miles, in four hours time,
To a small town whose name won't stand in rhime,
But by its signs with ease it may be known.

Sometimes it is a happiness to have a name not reducible to poetic laws.— Art. Euripides.

The number of princes, that have been either assassinated or imprisoned for their tyranny, is so great; and, on the other hand, the number of those, that have been able to maintain their mal-administration, and have not hastened the coronation either of a son, a brother, &c. by their violent conduct, is so very small, that one cannot sufficiently wonder how there can be any, who do not take warning by those examples.

Ad generum cereris sine cæde et sanguine pauci
Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranni.

Juvenal, Sat. x. ver. 112.

Few tyrants without blood resign their breath,
Or sink maturely in the arms of death.

As for the rest, the revolutions of states, whereby crowns are transferred from one head to another, have always been so frequent, that it is matter of wonder they have not been more so: for, after all, the worst that can happen, is to miss one’s aim; whereas, if a man succeed, he will find a thousand ways to defend himself against all imputations of injustice; and he will never want approvers, or alliances.—Art. Gardie.

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The duke de Biron was beheaded for joining with the duke of Savoy in a horrid conspiracy against the state. This was none of those petty conspiracies designed only to keep a king busy, that lie may not disturb his neighbours. It is affirmed, that the dukes of Savoy and Biron had agreed to “dismember the kingdom, to erect as many sovereignties in it, as there were provinces, and to put all those petty princes under the protection of Spain. The duke of Savoy was to have for his share the Lyonnois, Dauphine, and Provence, and Biron the duchy of Burgundy, to which the Spaniards were to add Franche Comte, as a portion for a daughter of their

king, or for a daughter of the duke of Savoy, whom they promised to marry to him?" Mezerai, Abrège Chron. Tom. 6, pag. 237. ⁴⁶ I shall hence take occasion, to observe a great difference between the passions of sovereign princes and those of private men. Any gentleman would certainly take it as a great affront, if one of his neighbours should offer to corrupt his servants, and engage them to betray their master. He would quickly send him a challenge, or at least seek an opportunity to end the difference sword in hand. But princes are contented to punish the traitors, and continue to keep correspondence with the seducer. Henry IV bore very patiently this hostility of the duke of Savoy; no rupture ensued upon it, and they remained, in all outward appearance, as good friends as they were before.

Art. Gontaut.

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“Isabella de Gonzaga,” says Hilarion de Coste, “would not see at her house, nor have any familiarity with the ladies, who were the least suspected or reported to have defiled the honour of their sex by the disorder of their conduct; and she was a mortal enemy to all those, who gave themselves up to the infamous pleasures of debauchery, banishing many from her dominions, and severely punishing those wretched old women, who, after having lost in their youth, shame and honour, conscience and reputation, think of nothing continually, at the end of their days, but how to ruin and destroy young, silly, and unadvised maids.” This was filling up all the duties of a virtuous princess, which she could not be said to have done, had she merely contented herself with an exact observation of her own conjugal loyalty. This may suffice for the generality, but not for those women who profess the first rank. They are indispensably obliged to stamp a mark of

infamy on gallanting ladies, by manifest testimonies of their indignation. This stain is a more effectual lesson than the most eloquent sermons of a pious preacher; and it is certain, that the corruption of a court, that proceeds from women’s gallantry, is a blot upon the life of a sovereign princess, though she be never so chaste and virtuous; for if she excluded from her familiarity women of bad fame, if she denied them admittance to her palace, if at least she mortified them by marks of coldness and censures, whilst she expresses her esteem and affection for chaste women, she would infallibly produce a reformation of manners. Whence we may conclude, that if gallantry walks barefaced, it is a sign that the chief lady makes but little outward distinction betwixt those that give occasion to scandal, and others of an unblameable conduct. If it be said, that this connivance is not to be attributed to want of zeal for the propagation of chastity, but to a certain good nature, that will not suffer the torrent to be opposed with the necessary vigour; I will still maintain, that this softness of temper, or good nature, is a great fault on the like occasions.—Art. Isabella Gonzaga.

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Here is what we read in one of the books of Gentilis. “How much I profited by my acquaintance at Oxford, is plain from my table books, in which I wrote down many things which passed in conversation, unknown to those with whom I conversed.” He adds what he had heard from his father, who had studied the civil law under the professor Argenterius. That professor never slighted any thing he heard in conversation, but set down all that occurred, even from the meanest persons, in a book for that purpose. Lastly, Gentilis relates that Alciatus learned by the action of a peasant, the sense of a passage of Plautus which he had not understood till then. God

preserve us from such hearers, who would be detested in all companies if they were found out; Bayle would have exclaimed with still greater emphasis in the present times. Ed. ⁴⁷ for there are those, who freely advancing whatever their memory suggests, would be very uneasy if they knew that at parting, some of the company would go and write down in their collections all they have heard. A man finds a great misreckoning, both as to proper names and circumstances of time and place, when he compares with the books in his closet the conversation of persons that have the largest memory, and speak without a premeditated design. Every one may know this by experience, and therefore ought to wish that what he delivers in familiar discourse may not be written down. Those who wish the contrary, ought never to speak unprepared.—Art. Gentilis.

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Travellers observe an infinite variety amongst men; in a day they are transported into another country, where they find another language, other habits, other customs; but notwithstanding those infinite variations, all nations are alike and agree in this, that there are but few honest men every where, and that forbidden pleasures are commonly practised.

Art. Golius.

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Cornelius de Hadrian, a famous Dutch preacher in the sixteenth century, was of Dort; he became a Franciscan, and was guardian of the convent and lecturer of divinity. He preached thirty years at Bruges, and never was concerned at the slanders which were published against him. He died at Bruges at sixty years of age, the fourteenth of July, 1581. He composed a treatise concerning the seven sacraments. The works which came out under his name after his death, were mixed with buffoonery and immodest jests. Sanders pretends that the heretics foisted

them in to defame the memory of this good and innocent monk; he ought to have proved this, or not to have said it. The Protestants speak of this Franciscan as of a violent declaimer, and there are books which say that he had introduced among women a new sort of devotion, which was, that he appointed them certain days in which they were to strip themselves stark naked before him, that he might give them a gentle discipline for the expiation of their faults. There is nothing that these people are not able to persuade women to under the specious pretence of devotion, when they have the talent of prating, and are celebrated for their preaching. If Gyges’ maxim were true, that a woman divests herself of her modesty with her clothes, our Hadrian’s affairs had been in a good case, supposing him not to have been visionary enough to fancy that his giving some lashes to the naked bodies of the penitents, would have a singular virtue to expiate their sins. The world is so ready to construe things perversely, that there are few who will attribute the conduct of this friar to any other principle than what somebody calls an inquisitiveness into the pleasures of others. If it were true, as some learned men have affirmed, that in the primitive church those who were baptized, of what age or sex soever, were as naked as they came into the world, one might better apprehend how this man by his fine tongue and great airs of piety, might bring his devotees to his ends. “The sacrament of penance,” said he perhaps to them, “ought to be administered as baptism formerly was; the punishment of the lash to which I condemn you, makes part of this sacrament; therefore, &c.” Meteren relates so fully and with so many circumstances, what concerns the devotees of this friar, that we may believe it to be true.—Art. Cornelius Hadrian.

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Though it is certain that many great generals

have been of a very amorous complexion, yet it does not follow that their courage and lust flowed from the same principle in their constitution. Each of those two qualities had its cause, and all that can be said is, that the two causes concurred in forming the constitutions of these men. But it is easy to prove that there is no connection between those two qualities. Was there ever a man more brave and undaunted than the marshal de Gassion, who had a mortal hatred to women? The count de Tilly who lived chastely all his life-time, was one of the greatest commanders of the seventeenth century. Did not M. de Turenne, though no debauchee, match those thunderbolts of war who lived at the same time with him, and whose lewdness made almost as much noise as their triumphs? And to give a still stronger proof, do not we know that the brave Sigismund Battori, prince of Transylvania, surnamed the invincible for his great exploits, was as great a poltroon in the wars of Venus, as he was brave in those of Mars; and that having confessed his impotence, his marriage with Mary Christina, daughter of Charles archduke of Gratz, was declared null. Some eunuchs have been very brave generals of armies; for not to go so high as the famous Narses who lived under the empire of Justin II, in the sixth century, do not we know that one of the most valiant generals of Solyman was an eunuch?—Art. Henry IV.

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There are two great defects in the fabulous inventions of the ancient Greeks; one is that they have not sufficiently diversified the capital incidents; the other is that they have not been able to observe any kind of uniformity in the circumstances. You will scarcely find two authors who in treating of the same fact, agree about the qualities and names of persons, and about the times and places. If they meant by that means to display the fertility of their genius, they

were mistaken; the barrenness of the principle is with difficulty repaired by diversified accessories. Parthenius’s Euphorion seems at first sight to give us something new; but observe it well, it is only Tereus removed to another scene with some changes of the actors.—Art. Harpalyce.

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As it is more agreeable to the principles of religion and piety, to acknowledge the hand of God, I mean a particular influence of providence in the establishment of the reformation, I approve those that judge of it in that manner; but I cannot forbear saying that some understanding persons believe that the rivalship between Charles V and the king of France, was more than sufficient to afford the Protestants the means of disputing the ground; and that if Luther made a greater progress than so many other reformers that lived before him, it is because he appeared in a favourable time when Francis I and Charles V were competitors, who to thwart one another, favoured this new sect by turns; and when it was once settled in Germany, it sent the Calvinists of France sufficient supplies to keep their posts, &c. Brantome’s question upon the little relation there is between burning a hundred heretics and protecting their nest, centre, and metropolis, will puzzle those who do not observe that this is one of the most common scenes of the great comedy of the world. Sovereign princes have in all ages thus played with religion, and they play this game still, for they persecute at home a religion which they support abroad. Irish Catholicism to wit. Ed. ⁴⁸ You must not infer from this that they have no religion, for the inference would be false; they are often religious, even to bigotry. What then can be the reason of this? They have a greater regard for the temporal interest of their dominions, than for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

I do not except the pope himself. I believe that he was no better pleased with the emperor’s progress against the league of the Protestants, than Francis I was. Let us quote Mezerai: “The noise of the emperor’s arms frightened all Christendom, the pope himself quaked for fear, lest after having conquered Germany he should come into Italy. When Francis had duly weighed the consequences of the ruin of the Protestants, he altered his opinion, made a league with them, and obliged himself to receive the duke of Saxony’s eldest son in France, and to allow him the private exercise of his religion, and promised to send one hundred thousand crowns to his father, and as many to the landgrave of Hesse, till he sent them some forces.” Had not he a great deal of zeal for his religion? He condemned to the flames some poor private persons, because they did not go to mass, and sent a powerful assistance to princes who had abolished the mass in their territories. This was to attack the party by the weathercocks; to take some tiles and stones, or plunder some huts, while they build for them strong forts and places of arms.—Art. Francis I.

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It was not hard for the Gentiles to imagine such a kind of nymphs as Hamadryades, for they had a religious veneration for trees which they believed to be very ancient, and whose extraordinary bigness de- ,monstrated their long life. It was an easy transition from this to believe they were the abode of some deity. They made a natural idol of them; I mean they fancied that without the aid of consecration, which brought down the god into the statues dedicated to him, a nymph or deity dwelt in the centre of these trees: the oak that Erysichthon felled was reverenced for its bulk and great age, it was adorned as a consecrated place, it was hung with the tokens of

the success of their devotions, and with the monuments of answered vows.

Stabat in his ingens annoso robore quercus
Una, nemus: vittæ mediam memoresque tabellæ,
Sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentis.

Ovid. Metam. lib. viii, ver. 746.

An aged oak here lifts its boughs in air,
Hung round with wreaths, sign of successful prayer.

Is it any wonder that it was taken for the seat of a Hamadryad?—Art. Hamadryades.

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Doubtless the leaguers designed to degrade Henry III and confine him to a monastery, and to place the duke of Guise on the throne. The duchess of Montpensier, sister to that duke, made no mystery of it. She one day told several people, showing them her gold scissors, that they would quickly serve to shave the king that he might be shut up in a monastery, and that the throne of which he was unworthy, might be filled by a man better qualified to reign and destroy the heretics; that man was her brother. M. Maimbourg does not deny that this duke aspired to the crown, at least after the death of the Valois. “He entered,” says he, “into the league to be the head of a party, which after the death of the Valois might raise him higher still. Among other preparations for it, a genealogy had been published whereby it appeared that the house of Lorrain derived their original from Charlemagne. The design of it was to intimate that the crown would be restored to the descendants of that king, who had been deprived of it by Hugh Capet.—Art. Guise.

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Dejotarus, tetrarch of Galatea, was most superstitiously bigotted to auguries. He undertook nothing without consulting the flight of birds, and he was so governed by that kind of auspices, that he often

interrupted his journies and went home again, after he had been several days in march. He had no other reasons to do so, than the presages which he discovered in his way. The flight of an eagle once hindered him from pursuing his journey; and it was well for him, for, if he had continued it, he had been buried under the ruins of the chamber that was designed for him: it fell the following night. Being very well skilled in those things, he was his own prophet and soothsayer. He did not forget to furnish himself with the most necessary qualification for that profession; which is, never to be at a stand, never to confess he is mistaken, and have always some evasion at hand. He found a subterfuge, that was full of morality, when he lost the greatest part of his dominions, and a great sum of money, for having been found in arms against Caesar. He led his forces to Pompey; the march was long, and he had always good omens on the way, which made him flatter himself that Cæsar would be defeated; things turned quite otherwise; Cæsar was victorious, and made Dejotarus feel his resentment in a very troublesome manner. What did Dejotarus? Had he honesty enough to acknowledge that his science had deluded him? did he show any sorrow or repentance for his too great credulity? none at all; but he had recourse to the finest maxims of morality: he said, “that the auguries which had moved him to continue his march to Pompey’s camp, were truly good auguries, since, under their direction, he had followed the party of justice.” It is true that it cost him the best part of his dominions; “but,” said he, the glory of having performed my duty is dearer to me than all the riches of the world.” Observe, that this man, who had such a religious respect for the orders of providence, as to the doctrine of auguries, made no difficulty to usurp his neighbour’s dominion, and to put his son in law and his daughter to death for quarrels, which doubtless his ambition had created. It is likely he would not have spared his father in a like case.—Art. Dejotarus.

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Bishop Hall was so great a lover of study, that he earnestly wished that his health would have allowed him to follow it, even to excess. This circumstance of his life is to be found in one of his letters. “Fear not my immoderate study,” says he, writing to a friend, Hall, Miscellaneous Letters, Dec. II, Epist. v, pag. 290. ⁴⁹ “I have a body that controls me enough in these courses, my friends need not. There is nothing whereof I could sooner surfeit, if I durst neglect my body to satisfy my mind; but, while I affect knowledge, my weakness checks me, and says: ‘ better a little learning than no health.’ I yield, and presently abide myself, debarred of my chosen felicity.” How happy are they who, with souls so fond of study, have bodies able to support themselves under this earnest and continual application of mind! Joseph Hall, not being of this happy number, acted as wise men ought on such an occasion: he curbed his inclination, whenever his body warned him that his health required that he should do so. They who would force nature, and continue pouring on their books, even after they find that study too much heats their blood, or exhausts their spirits, depart too far from the maxim, that life doth not consist in living, but in enjoying health.

At nostri bene computentur anni;
Et quantum tetricæ tulere febres,
Aut languor gravis, aut mali dolores,
A vita meliore separentur:
Infantes sumus, et senes videmur.
Ætatem Priamique, Nestorisque
Longam qui putat esse, Martiane,

Multum decipiturque, falliturque.
Non est vivere, sed valere vita.

Martial, Epigr. lxx, lib. vi.

From our account of life if we cut off
What pain, diseases, and the spleen have marr’d,
We’ll find we were only infants, though old men we seem:
Priam’s and Nestor’s years will seem but few,
For only then we live, when we are happy.

And if zeal for the service of the public encourage them to neglect their health, it must be a mistaken zeal; for they might be more useful to the republic of letters, by sparing than by overstraining themselves. A man makes a greater progress by doing a little every day, than by applying so closely for some weeks, in an obstinate manner, so as to occasion infirmities of a long continuance. Happy, I say once more, is he, who hath strength to study fourteen or fifteen hours a day, without being ever sick. An infinite number of men of letters are deprived of this happiness; some few, “pauci quos æquus amavit Jupiter,” are blessed with it:

     -------------- Unus et alter
Forsitan hæc sperent juvenes, quibus arte benigua
Et meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan.

Juven. Sat. xiv, ver. 33.

A few perhaps may with such labour play,
Form’d in a stronger mould, of more enduring clay.

Art. Hall.

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Aristotle has maintained a strange doctrine; that nature made no women, but when, through the imperfection of matter, it could not arrive at the sex which is perfect. Vossius commends Cajetan for having owned this with respect to particular nature, and for having denied it with respect to universal nature. Therefore, in the judgment of those two doctors, human nature aims not at engendering women; its design is always to get males: but because, if it should always compass that end, the universe

would suffer too much by it, there is a universal nature, which remedies it. What a pitiful jargon! what an odd idea of wisdom! what strange philosophy here is! human nature would study to preserve itself; and yet it should not aim at producing that being without which it cannot be preserved. This is the grossest of absurdities, and nevertheless, there is an infinite number of physicians and philosophers, who have asserted, that nature makes females only, when it is out of its road; and so that it produces none, but by chance, by accident, by force. Let us hear this foolery in Italian: “Huomini sapientissimi hanno lasciato scritto, che la natura, percio che sempre intende, et disegna far le cose piu perfette, se potesse, produrria continumente huomini: et quando nasce una donna, é difetto, o error della natura, et contra quello, ch’essa vorrebe fare: come si vede ancor d’uno, che nasce cieco, zoppo, o con qualche altro mancamento, et ne gli arbori molti frutti, che non muturano mai. Cosi la donna si puo dire animal produtto a sorte, et per caso. Count Balthasar Castiliogne, in his Corteggiano, lib. iii, pag. m. 382. ⁵⁰—The most learned men have left, in writing, that nature, which ever aims at perfection, would always produce men; and that, when a woman is born, it is as it were by mistake, and an error of nature; as when any one is born blind or lame, or with any other natural defect, or like the fruit of some trees, which never ripen: thus a woman is an animal produced by accident.” What I find moststrange is, to see that, in a council, the question was gravely put, whether the women were human creatures, and that it was not carried in the affirmative, but after a long debate.—Art. Gediccus.

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Erasmus looked upon it as a black and odious calumny to impute to him that he had taught, “that

heretics ought not to be put to death.” He confesses, indeed, that he has exhorted princes not to hearken rashly to the complaints of all sorts of divines and monks, and to distinguish errors; but he denies he ever maintained that heretics ought not to be punished with death, and complains that those who accuse him of that false doctrine expose him to the resentment of princes, as if be had designed to take from them the sword which God had put into their hands. I wonder that Erasmus, who was so well read in the fathers, did not know, that during the first three centuries, they loudly maintained the position from which he is so solicitous to purge himself. They did not pretend, by that, to take from princes the power of the sword, which they hold from God, but meant only that that power does not reach the errors of conscience, and that sovereigns have no commission from God to persecute religions. This is the true state of the question. All princes in the world own, that they have not the power of the sword against the true servants of God, or against orthodoxy, but only against the enemies of truth. It is upon this foundation that the heathen emperors punished the ancient Christians, and that the inquisition has since put Protestants to death. It is, therefore, altogether needless to prove to persecutors that they ought not to put the faithful to death, for it is what they do not pretend to, and they are not such fools as to believe that, by being deprived of that power, they lose any thing of their own. The only question, therefore, is to know, whether they may punish those who serve God according to the dictates of their consciences? The fathers of the three first centuries have denied it: why then did not Erasmus dare to imitate them? And what is still more surprizing, what is the reason that, within these few years, a minister of Holland has endeavoured to render those that are for toleration odious, because they rob sovereigns of one of their greatest prerogatives? Jurieu. ⁵¹ Does not this argue more malice and injustice than the Heathens shewed against the fathers of the primitive church, whom they did not charge with that pretended attempt against the state? But to shew the illusion of that minister, it is sufficient to ask him why he takes from Catholic princes the power of the sword with relation to Protestants? Why does he think that to be lawful in himself, which he condemns in others as high treason? “I speak in behalf of truth,” will he answer. But truth is what every body pretends to.

Art. Erasmus.

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Sigismund Guindano, a native of Cremona, having made a poem about the actions of the emperor, Charles V, presented it to that prince at such an unlucky time that he got nothing for it. He did not pitch upon a proper season, for he made his compliment, with his copy in his hand, when Charles V was engaged in a great war in Germany. He was so vexed at such an unprofitable reception, that he threw his poem into the fire. It is thought, that if he had been rich enough to get it printed at his own charge, he would not have been so cruel to his work; but his great poverty, which did not permit him to publish it, together with his spite, was a sufficient reason for him to destroy it. All those who intend to present their works to great men should mind this advice of Horace:

Ut proficiscentem docui te saepe diuque
Augusto reddes signata volumina, Vinni,
Si validus, si laetus erit, si denique poscet.
Ne studio nostri pecces, odiumque libellis
Sedulus importes opera vehemente minister.

Horat. Epist. xiii, lib. i.

When last we parted, this was my command: Present these papers to Augustus' hand;

From cares of empire if his mind unbends,
Or if he asks to see what Horace sends;
Lest Vinnius, by thy diligence misplac’d,
Thy master’s verses be at court disgrac’d.

That is, we ought to avoid an unseasonable time; for all princes are in that respect like Augustus; they will not be unseasonably interrupted. An author will miscarry for want of observing the critical minute, and what the Latins call, “Molies aditus, mollissima fandi tempora.” Our Guindano had this misfortune: he mis-timed his business; he shewed a poem of twelve books to an emperor who was engaged in a very troublesome war.—Art. Guindano.

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The Parisians easily pardon the publishing of a good book in a country gentleman who has made a long stay in Paris, but they take it very ill that any person who never went out of his province, should be a good author. They look upon it as an attempt of dangerous consequence: one would think that they imagine it to be a breaking loose from order, and withdrawing one’s self from the lawful authority of one’s superiors, and erecting in the republic of letters a sect of independents which is so odious in the church. What I have said of Paris I think to be true of ancient Rome; I do not believe that in the age of Cicero or Pliny the younger, the Romans would have taken it well that the poets and orators who lived beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees, should have written fine pieces before they had quitted their native soil.—Art. Pays.

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I remember this question is put in the Soirees, or Evening Entertainments of Bouchet: whether a priest did well in refusing to pray for the health of a parishioner, who had sent for him to come and pray to God that he would restore him to health? For, the priest having asked him, at what time he found himself

the better Christian, whether in health or in sickness, the sick man answered, that it was when God visited him. It would be better, therefore, replied the priest, that you should continue sick, that you may be the better man.” The decision of this priest is none of the most difficult; but jf he had desired, during a great sickness, that others should pray to God that it might continue, he had done an extraordinary thing.—Art. Pascal.

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Many school-men have asserted, that the natural reasons of the immortality of the soul are not convincing. “Naturae rationes Henricus atque Scotus probabiliter suadere aiunt, non necessario demonstrare.” Cajetanus, who had openly and haughtily rejected that opinion, embraced it at last; “I believe,” says he, “that our souls are immortal, but I do not know it: ‘ Se credere quidem animam rationalem incorruptibilem esse, at nescire tamen.’ ” He and Scotus, and Joannes de Janduno, having examined all the arguments alleged by Thomas Aquinas, declared that they were not demonstrative, “pronuntiarunt tandem rem non esse demonstratum sed creditam.” Scotus answered all the arguments of Thomas Aquinas. The latter proposed twenty-one probable reasons for the immortality of the soul, to which Joannes de Janduno added many more.—Art. Perrot.

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Thomas Hobbes undertook the translation of Thucydides to put the English out of conceit with the republican spirit. It was well enough thought of; but it had been better still, if he had written a book concerning the internal state of Athens. The history we have of that people is fit only to impose upon us; we are charmed with the fair side of it; we are dazzled with the battles of Marathon and Salamis; with their land and sea forces, their conquests, the wealth of the inhabitants, the pomp of their public shews, and

the magnificence of their public buildings. All those things induce us to think, that to live under another form of government is to be a slave. But, if we had a history which should but touch upon those things, and set forth at large the tumults of their assemblies, the factions which divided that city, the seditions wherewith it was agitated, the most illustrious subjects persecuted, banished, punished with death at the will of a violent harangue-maker, we should be convinced that the Athenians, who boasted so much of their liberty, were, in truth, but slaves to a few factious persons, whom they called demagogues, and who made them turn sometimes one way, sometimes another, according as their passions changed; as the sea drives the waves sometimes one way, sometimes another, according as it is tossed with the winds. If you enquire into the history of Macedonia, which was a monarchy, it will not afford you so many examples of tyranny as the history of the Athenians will. But what else does it afford? Ed. ⁵²

Art. Pericles·

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Let Boccaccio and Douville make a story as pleasant as ever they can, nobody ought to find fault with them for it. The ground they work upon is altogether their own, and consequently they may flourish as they please; but when an author relates a story which is to be found in the best ancient writers that are extant, he is not allowed to adorn it with a new dress, by adding to it some circumstances just invented. Yet this has been done in the Saint-Evremondiana. We are told that M. de St Evremond is not the author of that book, and that he disowns it from the beginning to the end. Yet there are very good things in that work, and they seem to have been expressed upon his model; but whoever is the author of it, Vigneul Marville would freely give him this advice: “The more particulars, like those that are to be found

in Brantome, a writer publishes, the more he raises himself above common writers, and makes himself useful to the public. Those who publish them must only take care that they be true and well grounded; for a writer is not allowed to invent chimeras to adorn his history.”—Art. Pheron.

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M. D’Ablancourt thought that princes should understand latin. He said, “that it was fit they should learn that tongue, because they might learn thereby several things of the ancients, which they cannot be told of, and see the honest men of antiquity condemn princes who are wanting of their duty. There is some wit in that thought, and I know not what, that may dazzle and charm those who do not examine things to the bottom. A stroke of censure that is well drawn, does much to set off a moral picture, especially when human grandeur is the object of that censure. This is the present case. M. d’Ablancourt’s thought imposes upon us for that reason, it thence takes its greatest beauty, but it is only an outward beauty. Examine what he says, sound it well, and you will find it is like gilt-wood; it is but an appearance and a superficial ornament. All learned nations tell princes of their faults in their mothertongue, and may instruct them in their duties as well as latin books. How can the books of ancient Rome teach modern princes? It is not by telling them, you have committed an injustice, and a very great fault in this or in that: it is only by the censure of the injustices and faults committed in ancient times. But do we now want books written in vulgar tongues, that represent the duties of princes with great force, and defame the memory of those who have reigned ill, either lately in other countries, or formerly in the very country where those books are written? To say nothing of sermons or political writings, let us only insist upon historians, Mezerai, for instance, who lived in the time of d’Ablancourt. I confess,

he has not written the history of his own time, but he comes infinitely nearer it than Livy or Tacitus, or any of the ancient Latin authors, and censures, with great liberty and force, the ill administration of the kings of France, that come under his consideration. He lashes them and their ministers as mere schoolboys, when truth requires it. Varillas uses the same freedom, though he was so great a flatterer of his cotemporaries: and the greatest flatterers of the present times commonly censure the faults of past times with the greatest freedom. So that the reason why M. d’Ablancourt pretends, that princes should understand latin, is false. It is so much the worse, because he could not be ignorant that the writings of ancient Rome have been translating for above these hundred years; and if he thought it so useful a thing for princes to understand that language, why did he afford them so fair a pretence by his own translation, not to study it?—Art» Perrot.

It cannot be denied, but that it is rare to see great devotion in persons who have once relished mathematical studies, and made an extraordinary progress in those sciences. I do not know but that we may say, in this case, what the abbot Furetière said of attorneys: “there are some saints who have been advocates, bailiffs, nay, even comedians: in fine, there is no profession, how mean soever it be, but there have been saints of it, except that of an attorney.”

Art. Pascal.

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That the reader may know how great was the devotion of the heathens towards their false gods, I shall observe, by the bye, that the gold and silver taken out of the temple of Delphos on that occasion, and turned into current money, amounted to ten thousand talents. Some say, that the wealth which the Phoceans took out of it, equals what Alexander 13 4

found since in the treasures of king Darius. Philomelus gave the golden crown of the Cnidians, taken out of die spoils of the temple of Delphos to Pharsalia, a woman-dancer. A fine destination this, and how agreeable to the intention of the Cnidians! “Non hos quæsitum munus in usus.” What a leap, from the arch of a temple, to the head of such a woman! however, she had an ill bargain of it: she went over from Greece into Italy, and one day, as she was dancing at Metapontum, in the temple of Apollo, some young men rushed upon her crown, and strove so hard to take away the booty from one another, that they tore in pieces the body of Pharsalia, as we read in Plutarch.—Art. Philomelus.

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There are infinitely more children who, in the heat and folly of youth, will marry improperly, than there are fathers who will oppose reasonable matches. It is, therefore, better that the laws should restrain the liberty of children, than that they should lessen the parental authority: besides, children after a certain age, were no longer restrained, by the edict of Henry II. The greatest abuses will sometimes prove convenient to some private persons; but that is not a reason to keep them up. Can any one be a truly honest man, a man of true merit, who endeavours to enrich himself, by depriving a father of the power which divine and human laws give him over his children? If we reckon right, we shall find that, for one man of merit who has raised himself that way, there are twenty who have only the art of wheedling a young woman, who is either very simple, or discontented with the severity of a mother, or a guardian, &c.

Art. Pienne.

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The inhabitants of the duchy of Luxemburg believe that each planet had a particular place consecrated to it in this country; and that anciently in the

town of Arlon there was an altar of the moon. Several images of the false gods have been found there, and several medals and inscriptions. Peter Ernest, count of Mansfield, removed them to Luxemburg, to adorn a fountain which he consecrated to the memory of His wife. He caused a magnificent house to be built near it. The inscription of this fountain will, perhaps, not be unacceptable here/ It is a notable monument of conjugal affection.—“Quisquis huc accedis si te aestus sitisve urget. Hic aestum quietus vitato. Sitim pronus extinguito. Aquam manu haurito. Os lavato. At pede ne turbato. Nudo corpore ne polluto. Quiescentibus enim carissimae uxoris manibus tranquillam undam sacravit. Mariæ de nomine Mariae fontem nuncupavit. Æterni sui amoris testes latentes vasta sub rupe lymphas erui. Vivo lapide cingi. Æternasque fluere jussit.

P. E. C. M.

Whoever thou art that comest hither to avoid the heat, or to quench thy thirst, thou mayest be refreshed here agreeably, undisturbed. Take up the water with thy hand; wash thy mouth; trouble it not with thy feet, nor pollute it with thy naked body; for he has consecrated these gentle waters to the peaceful manes of his most dear wife: and from her name, Mary, called it Mary’s fountain. He caused these limpid streams, the latent witnesses of his eternal love, to rush from yonder rock; enclosed them in native stone, and bid them for ever flow.

Peace be to the ashes of Mary.”

This is taken from a relation dated at Antwerp, the seventh of October, 1575.—Art. Luxemburg.

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The sophism which the Greeks called ψενδόμενον, is called “Mentiens (the liar)” by Cicero, in the second book “de Divinatione.” It was one of the most renowned

sophisms that Eubulides, successor of Euclid, produced. It consisted in certain terms which seem to destroy one another, or, as Africanus the civilian says, it is a way of reasoning, “Qua quicquid verum esse constitueris falsum esse reperietur. -‘-Whereby, whatever you establish for truth, is found to be false.” Here is an example of it: “if you say that you lie, and if, by saying so, you speak truth, you lie: but you say that you lie, and herein you speak the truth; therefore you lie when you speak truth.” It is a syllogism whereby you prove that a man does not speak truth, for that very reason that he speaks it. One may make the same sophism, by supposing, that a man who perjures himself, swears that he perjures himself; for, at one and the same time, he swears - truth, and consequently he does not perjure himself, and he swears a falsity, and consequently he perjures himself. They drew the same contradictory consequences from what was said by Epimenides, a Cretan poet, that all Cretans were liars. The stoics fell headlong into those false subtilties of the sect of Megara. Our modern logicians use sometimes the propositions which they call “seipsas falsificantes such as this is; “semper mentior,—I lie always.” A little judgment is sufficient to know the illusion of that sort of sophisms; yet Aristotle declares very seriously, that “the sophism called 'the liar' is a very perplexing one.” I am not so well pleased to hear him say so, as to see Seneca laugh at the great number of books that were made upon that sophism. “Quid me de tines in eo quern tu ipse pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum compositum est? ecce tota mihi vita mentitur, hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, dirige.—Why do you detain me in what you call 'the liar' about which so many books have been written? Lo, my whole life is made up of lies; disprove this, and direct it to truth, if you are ingenious.”—Art. Philetas. 

Luther taught that one and the same doctrine is false in philosophy, and true in divinity; but the most . rigid followers of Luther have deserted him upon this article; and have with so much force opposed their brethren who revived this notion, that they have obliged them to retract it. Let us say also, that some misunderstanding may mix in this dispute, and much controversy about words; and that Luther’s doctrine would be wrongfully blamed, if he had expressed himself after this manner, “the same doctrines which appear false and impossible, when we judge of them by natural light, are true and certain when we judge of them by the light of the word of God.” But to pretend, that even after revelation has showed us that a doctrine is true, it continues to be false in philo­.   sophy, is a gross mistake.—Art. Luther.

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Studious men, without going out of their closets, make the greatest discoveries on these two articles; because, in reading history they take a view of all the ages and countries of the world. History, properly speaking, is nothing but a collection of the crimes and misfortunes of mankind; but we must observe, that these two evils, the one moral, and the other physical, do not wholly fill up history, nor all the experience of private persons. There are every where some things that are physically good and morally good; some examples of virtue, and some examples of happiness; and this is that which makes the difficulty; for if there were none but evil and unhappy men, there would be no occasion to have recourse to the hypothesis of two principles; it is the mixture of happiness and virtue with misery and vice, which requires this hypothesis; and this is the strong hold of the sects of Zoroaster and of Manes.—Art. Manichees.

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Satirical writers are the people, in all the world, against whom a reader should most guard himself.

These are the men who reason the worst of any, and by the pleasantness of their wit, hinder us from enquiring into their sophistical arguments: but let us remember, that if they can dispense with several rules, yet they ought to be no less subject to the laws of reasoning than grave authors.—Art. Mary.

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It must be owned, as Baudius says, that the laws of generosity do not permit us to take advantage of what a man may have written as a secret to those he corresponded with; the heathens themselves were not ignorant of this truth; for, observe how Marc Antony was censured for reading before the senate some letters he had received from Cicero. “At etiam literas, quas me sibi misisse diceret, recitavit: homo et humanitatis expers, et vitae communis ignarus. Quis enim unquam qui paulum modo bonorum consuetudinem nosset, literas ad se ab amico missas, offensione aliqua interposita in medium protulit, palamque recitavit? Quid est aliud tollere e vita vitae societatem, quam tollere amicorum colloquia absentium? Quam multa joca solent esse in Epistolis, qnæ prolata si sint inepta videantur? quam multa seria neque tamen ulla modo divulganda? Cicero, Philipp. ii, cap. iv. ⁵³ He even repeated letters, which he said I sent him, being a man void of humanity, and ignorant of common life. For who is there so little conversant with good men, as, upon a quarrel, publicly to produce and read the letters of a friend? What is it but to destroy society, and put a stop to the correspondence of absent friends? How many jests are there in letters, which, when made public, will be thought insipid? How many serious things are there, yet by no means fit to be divulged?” Several think that this excellent law may be dispensed with in favour of religion; that is, when it is in our power to decry

a man who has written against our religion, or who by his revolt may shake the faith of the weak; and thus they make no scruple of publishing his very billets or notes, if copies of them fall into their hands. They would perhaps be more scrupulous, if they were themselves the persons, who had received them; for it is not so contrary to the law we speak of, to publish a letter another has received, as one that is written to ourselves. The civilian Baudouin reproaches Calvin with having printed several letters which he had written to him.—Art. Lipsius.

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All that the Peripatetics have taught concerning substantial forms is exceedingly impertinent. If we did not know it by experience, we should hardly believe it possible for men of sense, who spend all their lives in philosophizing, to maintain that a substance distinct from matter is nevertheless material, and subsists only dependently on matter; that it is produced from the power of matter without existing in it previously; that it is not compounded either of matter, or any other pre-existing thing, and that, notwithstanding, it is not a created being: lastly, that without the assistance of any knowledge to direct it in its operations, it produces the machines of animals and plants.

Art. Morinus.

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Lewis XI changed his servants every day, and was subject to the roughness of [John Cottier, his physician, to whom he gave ten thousand crowns a month, durst refuse him nothing, and promised him all he could desire, provided he would drive away the terrible phantom of death, at the mention whereof he would cover his face in bed. This physician sometimes told him in a bravado, “I know well enough, that some morning or other, you will send me packing, as well as the rest; but I swear by God, that you shall not live eight days after.” This poor

prince, instead of treating him as Maximin did his medical professor, gave him all he desired, bishopricks, benefices, and offices.—Art. Lewis XI.

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Such was the strange superstition of ancient Rome, not only servant maids sought after omens for marriage, but ladies of the first quality, and those who were of a rank equal to that of our duchesses, amused themselves with those fooleries, and relied upon the catch of the first word that fortune should make them hear. Even at this day, the quality of a duchess does not free a female from these fortune-telling superstitions wherewith the citizens’ wives are so infatuated.

Art. Metella.

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All things duly weighed and considered, we should be obliged to confess that the laws which permit kingdoms to fall to the distaff have not been wisely established. It is not that women have less wit or less capacity than men; there have been some, who have reigned with so much glory, and who have ascended the throne with such courage, wisdom, and ability, that the greatest of kings have scarcely deserved to be compared with them; but then it happens accidentally, that those states which observe not the Salique law are exposed to several inconveniences for want of it, of which this is not the least, that he who marries the heiress of the crown is almost always at variance both with his subjects and with his queen. They, for the most part, look upon him only as the husband of their queen, and not their king, while she is not displeased to have them do so.—Art. Naples.

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The baron des Coutures observes, that " the invocation at the beginning of the poem of Lucretius has surprized a great many of the learned, as being contrary to Epicurus’s doctrine. Lambinus,” adds he, “cites a Florentine, who pretends to have found the

reason of it, because this philosopher, having maintained that our crimes provoked not the anger of the gods, nor our good actions procured to us their favours, admitted, however, of prayers, and owned that they heard those of men.” I do not examine whether, from Epicurus’s professing to honour the gods, we may be allowed to conclude that he professed also to invoke them, and to expect they would hear his prayers. There is no consequence between these two things. We may esteem, respect, and venerate a being on account of the perfection of its nature, without addressing our prayers to it; for we might be persuaded that it concerned itself with nothing, and dispensed neither good nor evil. Nor yet do I trouble myself to enquire, whether Epicurus might not pretend to honour the deity, only to secure himself from the punishments established against Atheism. But I venture to affirm, that Lucretius did not invoke the goddess Venus, to conform himself to the principles this Florentine ascribes to Epicurus, that the gods are worthy of our prayers, though they do not govern the world. That which, in my opinion, is most reasonable to believe, is that all this is only a piece of wit. Lucretius seeing all the poets invoke the muses at the beginning of any great work, was not willing bis poem should be destitute of an ornament of this kind; he therefore sets out with an invocation of Venus as the most proper deity for a naturalist. But he no ways pretended that this was an act of religion, or that Venus, whom he celebrates with so many praises, was an intelligent being: thus, he has in another place invoked the muse Calliope, without pretending that he addressed himself to an intelligent being; he has not, therefore, acted against his own principles. I should sooner accuse Lipsius of committing an act of Heathen idolatry in the verses he addresses to the planet Venus in behalf of his garden, than ascribe to Lucretius an act of religion from the prayer he addresses to the mother of Æneas. An abundance of Christian poets, infinitely greater enemies to the Heathen gods than Lucretius was, solemnly invoke the muses, or Bacchus, in their poems. This is imitating the ancients, and not performing an act of religion; for they have not a thought of invoking the deity.—Art» Lucretius.

St Austin, confuting astrology by the argument of the different fate of two twins, proposes Nigidius’s answer in this difficulty. This astrologer maintained, that the motion of the heavens is so rapid, that though there is but a small interval betwixt the birth of the first and second of the twins, yet they are born under celestial points very different from each other, and to prove it, he turned with all his strength a potter’s wheel, and made two marks on it while it turned. It was thought that the marks were made upon the same part of the wheel; but when it rested, they appeared to be at a good distance from one another. This was the reason of his being surnamed the Potter.

Art. Nigidius.

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Ovid prides himself in having never once attacked any person in a satirical way, and he represents this to the emperor to shew him, that if his verses had offended in other respects, yet they deserved encouragement on this account, that they were always exempt from the spirit of ill nature.

Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quemquam,
   Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet,
Candibus à salibus suffusis felle refugi:
   Nulla venenato litera mista joco est. Inter tot populi, tot scripti millia nostri,
   Quem mea Calliope laeserit, unus ero.

Ovid, Trist. lib. ii. ve r.

None can with justice of my verse complain,
Since they the faults of no one soul contain.

The wit they have is without gall express'd,
No mixture of ill-nature points the jest.
Of all mankind, howe’er my works abound,
I am the only person they shall wound.

Art. Ovid.

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Niphus relates an uncommon instance of his wife’s affection for him. While he was composing a work entitled “Thesserologium Astronomicum,” he shut himself up so closely among his books that he saw nobody. His wife imagined he was grown melancholy, and vainly tried several ways to cure him. She at last fancied that the pleasures of love would prove an effectual remedy; for this reason she sent into his study to him, all alone, a handsome girl that she had been very jealous of, and hated heartily upon that account. She begged of her earnestly to refuse him nothing he should desire, not even the last favour. Niphus took no notice of her; upon which his wife betook herself to her prayers and tears, which lasted till he had finished his book. After which he resumed his usual gaiety, and saw company as before. The good woman also recovered her good humour, “ipsa quoque è mortuis in vitam rediit.”—Art. Niphus.

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The poets have always taken the liberty of praising themselves to excess. I have elsewhere blamed Malherbe for praising himself in a manner more becoming a braggadochio in a play than a gentleman; and I have cited two authors, one of whom condemns him, or justifies him only ironically, and the other excuses him in earnest, and shews that the liberty of giving one’s self pompous eulogiums is an ancient privilege of the sons of the muses. He observes, “that Virgil, Horace, and Ovid have made use of it.” He treats this matter more largely in another work, wherein he recites the places in which Ennius, Næ- vius, Plautus, Catullus, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace,

Ovid, Propertius, Lucan, Statius, and Martial praise themselves. He shews also that the modems have imitated those examples. Observe, that he goes back as far as the Greek poets, for he cites Pindar, Hesiod, Theocritus, and Moschus.—Art. Malherbe.

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Mary Stuart, after the death of Francis II, her husband, went over to Scotland. The cardinal of Lorraine, her uncle, was of opinion that it was her best way to deposit her jewels with him, till fortune had decided the success of her voyage; but she, knowing very well his intentions, answered him, “that whilst she hazarded herself to all the dangers of the sea, she should be to blame in being more concerned for her jewels than her person.”

Art. Lorraine.

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Lewis XI made a contract, which was called “the donation of Lewis XI to the Virgin Mary of Boulogne, of the right and title to the fief and homage for the county of Boulogne, on which the county of St Paul depends, to be paid before the image of the said lady by his successors, in 1478.” The abbot of St Real pretends, “that dll antiquity, whether Greek or Roman, never saw any man pretend to honour himself before the people, by bestowing bounties on the gods, and that this refined devotion was reserved for Lewis XI.” He maintains “that an excess of this nature in such a one as he was, ought rather to be reputed an artifice than an extravagance.” For, after all, were the bailiffs, provosts, and other officers of the county of Boulogne, though they had been called the Virgin’s bailiffs, provosts, and officers, less obliged to obey the king? Did the church of Boulogne enjoy the revenue of the land, so that she was better served than before? Was the king ever the less count of it, for having given this county to the virgin? Not at all? Did not the people at that time see this as

we see it? they might if they had pleased; but Lewis XI saw all these things much better than they did or we do. In the meantime, this prince, so dexterous in the use of all the instruments of policy, who had so profoundly studied that of religion in particular, and played this engine in all the known methods, thought he might safely try it this one way more, when once he had invented it, and carry it so far without danger; he judged in short that his people were capable of bearing with it. He must have been well acquainted with their nature, to venture so far.” There is a great deal of solidity in these reflexions; but considering the practice that has prevailed in all times, and which the abbot of St Real has commended, I do not find any thing wonderful in this conduct of Lewis XI, or any reason to suspect more artifice in it, than in the rest of his devotions. The heathens made donations to their gods, not only of precious stones, and of vessels of gold and silver, but also of lands. The Catholics daily give the holy virgin, some a pearl-necklace, others a crown, or a robe beset with diamonds, &c. They disseise themselves of the property of these goods, and convey them to the mother of the son of God. Why will not you allow then, that a man may as well convey the title of sovereign of a certain fief to her? Is it strange that Lewis XI should declare himself her vassal, her liege-man in respect of a county whereof he was sovereign? What mighty wonder is it, that he should from henceforth command homage to be paid this saint? I own he reserves to himself the profitable demesnes, and all the other advantages of possession; but this hinders not his granting away an honourable right; and the conveyance he makes of it comes under the same species of liberality, as the gift of a heart of silver, or a crown glittering with precious stones. The instrument of this conveyance, hung up in a church in letters of gold, would be as glorious an ornament as a statue of silver. It is very probable that he believed he had made a donation which would highly please the holy virgin, dispose her to protect him, and be liberal of her favours towards him; his principles and acts of piety might all be wrong, and yet attended with a sincere persuasion of mind; one proof of this is, that he never durst swear falsely upon the cross of St Laud, being struck with a vulgar tradition, “that they who swore upon this cross, and were perjured, died a miserable death before the year’s end.” The constable of St Pol prayed him to swear upon that cross, “that he would neither do, nor suffer any other to do him any harm.” The king answered, “that he had sworn he never would take that oath, for any man alive; but that there were no other oaths; but he would willingly take to satisfy him.”—Art. Lewis XI.

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Aspasia was the cause of the war, which the republic of Athens declared against the Samians. They were at war with the Milesians for the city of Priene, which the two parties laid claim to. The Samians got the victory. Aspasia, out of love for her countrymen, desired Pericles to make the Athenians declare war against the Samians. It is said also that she was the cause of the Megarian war, which was the beginning of that of Peloponnesius, and that the motive which induced her to it was a very shameful one. Some young Athenians having drunk too much, went to Megara, and carried away a famous courtezan. The Megarians carried away, by way of reprizal two courtezans belonging to Aspasia. This was the subject of her anger, which moved her, as it is said, to make use of all her credit to have the Megarians attacked, to which Pericles was well enough disposed. Plutarch had done well to set down the two following verses; for they contain the conclusion which the poet draws from that narrative, viz. that three

courtezans were the cause of a general war in Greece.

Κᾀντεῦθεν ἀρχὴ τοῦ πολἑμα κατεῤῥάγη
Ἑλλησὶ πῦσιν, ἐκ τειῶν λαικαζειῶν.

Hinc initium belli prorupit Universis Graecis, ob tres metretriculas.

Art. Pericles.

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Ovid confesses his negligence and idleness upon this head. He agrees that he was justly censured at Rome for eternally repeating the same things in the poems he wrote during his exile. This was a  fault he was very sensible of, and endeavoured to mend; but the vivacity which animated him in his first composition, failing him when he came to revise what he had written, he found the correction too troublesome, and quite gave it over. This is only one of his excuses. It is certain that the case is the same with a great many authors. They compose with pleasure and warmth, and thence it is that they display their whole force; but they flag when they come to revise their work: the first fire returns no more; there succeeds in their imagination a certain calm which makes their pen proceed with a thousand difficulties. It is like a boat that can make no way but by the force of oars.—Art. Onto.

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The Jews pretend that Alexander the Great determined several disputes they had with their neighbours. They suppose that three sorts of people applied to Alexander, to request the restitution of the goods, which the Jews unjustly detained from them. The Canaanites, who escaped from Joshua, came to complain of the usurpations of the Jews: the Egyptians came to demand the household goods, which the Jews borrowed of them on leaving Egypt; the Arabians or the descendants of Ishmael, and of the

sons of Keturah, came to demand their part of the succession of Abraham. The Rabbi Gibea Ben-Pesisa pleaded for the Jews; the plaintiffs cited some passages of scripture, and the Rabbi answering them in the like manner from scripture, they knew not what to say and retired with shame; Never was a cause more easily gained. I do not understand the answer Gibea made the Egyptians; he possibly used this principle, that the Jews had laboured so much for the Egyptians, that what they borrowed, equalled not the least salary of a labourer. Tertullian has said somewhere, that the Jews pretend there was some conference betwixt the Egyptian envoys and theirs, and that the Egyptians renounced their jewels, when they heard the pretensions, which the Jews founded on their great labours in Egypt. He seems, on account of this reason, to approve their keeping the jewels that had been lent them; but it is certain, that this would be introducing the bad morality of the modern Casuists, to ground ourselves on such a right: how could we by this principle blame a servant who robs his master, as far as the value of his wages? It is even true, that this servant’s cause would be better than that of the Israelites, since they carried away the goods of those, for whom they had not laboured; their labour was for the prince, and they paid themselves with the goods of the subject. It is as if at present, the Protestants, whom the persecution has robbed of their estate in France, should indemnify themselves upon their Catholic fellow-citizens, when they retire into foreign countries. There is no justifying the Israelites therefore, but by the express command of God, who, being absolute master of all things, can transfer the property of one person to another, as he pleases. I need not say, that these suits brought against the Jews before Alexander, are chimeras.—Art. Macedonia.

“Louis XII,” says Brantome, “had that consideration for Anne of Brittany, his wife, that being one day told how the clerks of the Basoche du Palais, and the scholars had acted plays, into which they brought the king and his court, and all the grandees, he made no more of it, than to say they must have their pastime, and that he allowed them to speak of him and his court, but however not disrespectfully; and above all, that they should not speak of the queen, his wife, in any manner whatever; otherwise he would have them all hanged.” Thus you see what honour he paid her.—Art. Lewis XII.

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The Manichees were divided into two orders, that of the elect, and that of the hearers. The former were not allowed to exercise agriculture, or even to gather fruit; the latter were allowed to do these things, and were assured, that the murders, they committed in this exercise, were pardoned them by the intercession of the particles of God, which came out of prison, when the elect did eat them. Thus the remission of these murders was founded upon this, that they furnished the elect with food, and procured liberty to the particles of the divine substance, that were imprisoned in plants. St Augustin relates these chimeras, and laughs at them as they deserve.

Art. Manichees.

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Theopompus writing of Mausolus, king of Caria, asserted, that “for money he would commit the greatest crimes.” Without doubt, these words are taken out of the histories of Theopompus; but he took care not to speak thus in the Eulogium he made upon that prince, which won the prize that Artemisia proposed to the orators, that would make a panegyric upon her husband: then, for certain, Theopompus made Mausolus a most accomplished prince, and adorned him with all sorts of virtues; and yet you see what he

says of him in another book. This double dealing, in saying one thing with the tongue and another with the pen is abominable: every thing ought to be suspected in such kind of people, who divide themselves into two persons, and think it lawful when they consider themselves as orators, to tell such lies as they would not adopt when they write a history by which no prize is to be got. This distinction is mere sophistry: an author of memoirs, and a writer of history, are wholly and inseparably responsible for all that comes from their pen, when they are one and the same writer.—Art. Mausolus.

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The reason alleged by the Origenist that there is a necessity of allowing the creature free will, in order “to make room for virtue and vice, for praise and reproach, for reward and punishment,” might be very easily and effectually refuted. It would suffice to reply, that such a reason is so far from obliging a being infinitely holy and infinitely liberal to grant free will to creatures, that, on the contrary, it ought to divert him from it. Vice and reproach ought to have no place in the works of a cause infinitely holy; all the avenues to them ought to be stopped, all ought to be laudable; virtue ought to fortify every post in such a manner that her adversary might never be able to make any invasion. And as all ought to be happy under the empire of a sovereign being infinitely good and infinitely powerful; so pains or troubles ought to have no place in the same. In travelling through this vast empire, we ought to meet with no valley of tears, no “vestibulum,” such as a great poet has thus described:

Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci,
Luctus, et ultrices posuêre cubilia curae:
Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus: 
Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas,
(Terribiles visu formæ) Lethumque, Laborque:
Tum consanguineus Lethi Sopor: et mala mentis

Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum:
Ferreique Eumenidum thalami; et discordia demens,
Vipereum crinem vittis inexa cruentis.

Virgil. Æn. lib. vi. ver. 273.

Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell,
Revengeful cares, and sullen sorrows dwell:
And pale diseases and repining age,
Want, fear, and famine’s unresisted rage;
Here toils, and death, and death’s half-brother, sleep,
Forms terrible to view their sentry keep:
With anxious pleasures of a guilty mind,
Deep frauds before, and open force behind:
The furies iron beds, and strife that shakes
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.

Without passing through places filled with horror, we ought at first setting out to fall in with the scenes of felicity.—Art. Origen.

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We may affirm that the number of those who were lukewarm, indifferent, or disgusted with Christianity, diminished much more than it increased by the disturbances Europe felt on occasion of Luther. Every one chose his side with warmth; some remained in the Roman communion, others embraced the Protestant. The first conceived a greater zeal for their religion than they had before; the latter were all on fire for their new belief. It was impossible to shew those who, as Coeffetau says, “rejected Christianity upon account of so many disputes.'' Had he said that the divisions of Christians, and their conduct towards one another after having formed themselves into sects, are most proper to bring the Gospel into discredit, I should have agreed with him; but he must have supposed, at the same time, a thing which very few practise He must have supposed that there are a great many without bias; that is, who examine without prejudice what happens at home and abroad. But where are these to be met with? Where are

those who, by the force of custom, do not judge the same things to be most just, when they make others suffer them, and most unjust when they suffer them themselves? In such a disposition as this, there is no danger that the multiplicity of sects should create many Pyrrhonists. Every one, happen what may, will stick fast by the party he has chosen. The antiperistasis, which the new philosophers have banished from nature, takes place in religion. Zeal cools when it is not observed, and surrounded with other sects, and rekindles when it is. Coeffetau, and those who argue with him, are therefore mightily mistaken, and have taken that for granted which must happen only in case men reasoned after a certain manner.

Art. Luther.

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The jealousy between Mainus and Philip Decius, another professor, was carried to a great height. There is nothing more common than to see this kind of jealousy produce a torrent of reproaches and slanders; but it happens seldom that those who are tainted with it throw stones at one another in a literal sense, as these two professors did one day. They met in a narrow street, and disputed the wall, and had like to have knocked one another down with stones. What a strange sight was this, and how diverting to children and all passengers!

Art. Mainus.

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There have been instances wherein Henry IV had the power to disengage himself from the snares which were laid for him by fine ladies. Catherine de Medicis asking him at the conference of St Brix, “What he would have?” he answered, looking on the young ladies of her retinue, “there is nothing there, madam, that I am for;" meaning, that he designed no longer to be caught by such sort of lures. He was not so prudent on other occasions; for some time after the

Paris massacre, he suffered himself to be captivated by the charms of some young ladies of the court, whom it is said that queen made use of on purpose to amuse the princes and lords, and to discover all their thoughts. Behold an abominable queen! Every body knows what name is given to such a trade. Good God! what a school for young ladies of quality, whom they call maids of honour! Observe, that if this queen had desired to keep two or three hundred, she would have been supplied with them, so great was the corruption of that time; for it was well known what use she made of these maids of honour.

Art. Henry IV.

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It is certain that the re-union of the Lutherans and Calvinists had been brought about long ago, had it depended only upon the princes; but because that affair depends on the divines, it never yet could take effect, and probably never will. It is not I who judge thus of these gentlemen, generally speaking, but it is one of themselves, and he amongst them who can speak best of it by experience. He says, “that the . business of the re-union ought to be principally committed to secular persons, and not to ecclesiastics. The divines,” adds he, “are very much addicted to their own sense, and have but little equity for those that differ from their opinion.” They should not dispute concerning the truth of the doctrines; for disputes rather create new wars than appease the old ones. Disputants do not seek for concord, but victory. They who find themselves worsted, grow more haughty and enraged. In an assembly where a reunion is treated of, the divines should be reduced to the bare plain function of advocates; they should be heard, but should not be judges: that quality ought to be left to statesmen, and it would be necessary that the divines should even take an oath, that they will

submit to the sentence that the political judges shall pronounce.—Art. Hottinger.

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Satirical writers are like those jesters who sacrifice every thing to the pleasure of putting off their jests. Horace has very well described this passion. Quintilian makes use of the same colours for drawing the picture of such sort of people, and for giving a distaste of their character. “Let us beware,” says he, “of the maxim of those who had rather lose their friend than their jest.” Cicero observes, “that they slight all the considerations of decency, and have no regard either to persons or occasions, and could more easily keep fire in their mouths than a jest.” We must not wonder that they do not spare their friends, for they do not spare themselves. They make themselves merry at their own cost, and their character is like that of those buffoons, who strike indifferently themselves and others. They spare neither God nor men, and the religion of their heart does not escape their poignant wit. It is too weak a barrier to keep off the eruption of a flash of wit. Judge then, whether the religion which they believe to be false can restrain such sallies of wit. The glory and satisfaction which they expect from the boldness of a jest, transports them beyond all other considerations, and those who have said “that a poetic vein is an emetic, whose operations cannot be stopped without great danger of choaking,” have given us a lively image of the passion of these people. We may add, that when they have their pen in their hand, they quit all things to run after some satirical thoughts, and when they have any glance of them, though at never so great a distance, they throw themselves on that side; and lest they should digress to no purpose, they force in and wind any matter till they have adjusted it to their object: and if they find it too long and too gross, they

contract and smooth it as much as their interest requires. These writers may be compared to Procrustes, who made all his prisoners equal to the measure of his bed. There is more or less in all this, and I do not put together all these ideas to prove that all those who delight in raillery and satire do equally, and without exception, use these excesses. But it is . a matter of moment to expose the character of wit, by which men are so easily seduced, by showing its deformed side. A writer of controversies, who has a good wit, very much diverts the readers of his party when he turns things maliciously, and with an air of raillery, satire, and burlesque; and the more he diverts them, the more he persuades; but since the method he adopts engages him into a thousand cheats and a thousand falsifications, it is necessary one should know that he is a dangerous impostor. This will enable us to stand upon our guard; we should read him as one we must distrust; take nothing upon his word; examine what he says, and confront all his quotations with the originals.—Art. Mary.

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Jerom Nymnan, a minister, and brother in law to Horstius, wrote a letter to him dated from Torgau, March 10, 1556, in which he desires him to acquaint him whether a story which Sabinus had lately told at Wittemberg was true. It was, that a gentleman of the Marche of Brandenburg, near Standel, had harshly rejected the request of a poor woman, who desired him in the name of God, to abate something of the price of the corn that she wanted to buy of him, and that the piece of money which she gave him was changed into a serpent by an unknown person whom he met on the road, and that this serpent had wreathed itself about that gentleman’s neck, and could not be removed from thence. Horstius, who was then at Franckfort on the Oder, answered to his brother-inlaw, that he had heard nothing of all this, but that,

if he should hear any thing about it, he would inform him. We have here an example of the caprices of common fame. Prodigies frequently make more noise in remote countries than in that where it is pretended that they happen; this is a character of falsehood; for things that are true, are more certainly known in the places where they have happened, than any where else. People who have a mind to tell lies, ought to take care not to lay the scene too near. They do not always observe this precaution, and yet they are believed, but still they run a greater hazard by doing so.—Art. Horstius.

I have said elsewhere, that republics have an advantage which kingdoms want: the sovereign in a commonwealth is never too young, nor ever too old. He is not subject either to the infirmities of childhood, or those of old age. Kingdoms have not that good fortune; they experience one while the disorders of a minority, sometimes the heat of boiling blood, and at other times the slowness and heaviness of a declining age. A king is forced to complain more than once, that the number of his years take away the activity and resolution which he formerly enjoyed, and which a young prince, his enemy possesses.

- - - Non laudis amor, nec gloria cessit
Pulsa metu: sed enim gelidus ardeute senectâ.
Sanguis habet, frigentque effect» in corpora vires.

Virgil. Æneid. lib. v. ver. 394.

- - - My soul is still the same,
Unmov’d with fear, and mov’d with martial fame:
But my chill blood is curdled in my veins,
And scarce the shadow of a man remains.

Art. Henry IV.

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There is nothing that sets men more against innovations in matters of religion, than when they see

that the change of worship would put a stop to their trade, and be “lucrum cessans, et damnum emergens,” gain sinking, and loss rising. I know very well, that superstition alone, is sufficient to make a city obstinate in retaining the worship of its idols: the hope of their protection is sometimes the only advantage that is reaped from them. The worship of idols is not always attended with public profit; the artificers and merchants do not always get by it, and it does not always occasion a great concourse of strangers and devout travellers, who leave a great deal of money behind them. Without this kind of assistance, the zeal of a people for their ancient Gods may inspire them strongly to oppose the extirpation of idolatry; but it is quite another thing, when the public worship is a source of gain to private persons. What was the cause pray, of the popular commotion, which made that out-cry (when St Paul was preaching) “Great is Diana of the Ephesians?” Was it not from the remonstrance of one Demetrius a silversmith, who made silver shrines for Diana, which brought no small gain to the craftsmen? He assembled them and told them, “Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth and gave them to understand, that not only their profit, but likewise the advantage of the whole city of Ephesus, was concerned not to suffer one Paul, “who persuaded and turned away many people, saying, they be no gods which are made with hands.” Hence we may conclude, that the inhabitants of Ephesus would have been more tractable, with respect to the gospel, if their great Diana could have been taken away, without doing any prejudice to their gain, or to the veneration which all the world had for their temple. They would in such a case have been infinitely more docile as to the lectures of St Paul against idols. We - must confess therefore, that Mahomet found out a notable device to gain the inhabitants of Mecca. He  preserved the concourse of pilgrims, which was so profitable and glorious to them; he left their temple its ancient privileges; he took care to indemnify them: this was an excellent remedy against the vexation which the ruin of their ancient idolatry might cause them.—Art. Mecca.

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There are many cases, in which it is very reasonable to write the history of the same reigns which have already been written by others. As when a man has many new things to say, or when he can illustrate and rectify the preceding histories in many places. When the design is to collect into one body all the facts belonging to a history, some whereof lie in some books, and others in some others. When the taste of the readers requires a new language, and a new turn. At present, for instance, most people would choose rather to be ignorant of history, than to read the authors who composed it, in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. And therefore, though     a historian should have nothing to say, but what was already printed, yet it would be commendable to publish a history, provided the turn and the stile could allure the reader, and the public appeared altogether disgusted with the other historians. Whence it appears, that if there are so many books containing the same things, it is not always the fault of the authors, but frequently of the readers, who' will not be at the pains of seeking historical facts separately, or of turning over books written in old French. It is therefore for their convenience and profit, that some authors publish histories, which teach nothing new, and only connect together in a better stile, the different pieces of other authors. If you have discovered some new facts, will it be said to you, be contented to publish them, and nothing else, why do you from thence take occasion to make a large book, in which you crowd so many trite stories? This censure is just

on many occasions, but not when their new discoveries may be diffused upon a very long train of events. They must then be incorporated with former narrations; the interest and convenience of the reader requires it. What has been said of historical books, may be applied to other works. There are but too many I own which contain nothing but what is found in a hundred others; but on the other side, it would be a thing prejudicial to the republic of letters not to dare to put in a book, what other books have already published.—Art. Haillan.

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Everybody was scandalized in Paris, in 1622, to see the pomp wherewith the barefooted Carmelites celebrated the canonization of St Theresa. If canonizations could be made without vast expenses, they would be more common: it is well that the impossibility of supplying the expense is a barrier to the greediness of the monastic orders. Subjects of canonization would not be wanting; every community would have as many of them as the others; and if the charge were but little, the other engines would easily be prepared.—Art. Hadrian VI.

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Those that have never so little penetration, see plainly, that in the dispute about liberty, there are but two sides to be taken: one is to say, that all the causes distinct from the soul, which concur with it, leave her the power of acting, or not acting; the other is to say, that they determine it in such a manner to act, that she cannot do otherwise. The first opinion is that of the Molinists; the other is, that of the Thomists, Jansenists, and the Protestants of the confession of Geneva. Here are three sorts of people that oppose Molinism, and who at the bottom must be of the same mind; and yet the Thomists have contended might and main, that they were no Jansenists, and the Jansenists have maintained

with equal heat, that upon the point of liberty they were not Calvinists. There are no artifices or ill-grounded distinctions, but what have been made use of to colour that pretence; and all this with design to avoid the dangerous consequences they foresaw, would follow their confessing any conformity, either with the Jansenists, or the Calvinists. On the other hand, there is no sophistry but what the Molinists have made use of, to shew, that St Augustin did not teach Jansenism, as being unwilling to own, that their doctrine is contrary to that of this great saint. Thus the Thomists refusing to confess their conformity with people called heretics; and the Molinists, to own themselves against a doctor, who has been always reckoned orthodox in his opinions, have played a hundred tricks without a grain of sincerity.

Art. Jansenius.

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Hunnius declares, that if he does not give a demonstration of John Calvin’s Judaism, he never desires to be believed upon any thing else. One cannot forbear asking this question; was he persuaded of what he said, or was he not?. Christian charity obliges us to say he was; for otherwise we must take him for the most wicked man alive. Let us say then, that he spoke according to his persuasion, and conclude from thence, that in hot constitutions like his, zeal is a sort of drunkenness, which so disorders the mind, that a man sees every thing double, and the wrong way. The priestess of Bacchus, who fell upon her own son, whom she took for a wild boar, whilst he looked on the ceremonies of the feast without any faith, or rather with contempt, is an image of the giddiness which seizes zealots.

Art. Hunnius.

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There are several things which the laws tolerate in the people, which would not be allowed in a philosopher.

The laws do not forbid the people to divert themselves with women of pleasure, or to spend their time in taverns; but they account the keeping of such company, and such a kind of life, to be scandalous, even in persons of moderate probity: therefore, what is suffered in the common people, is not to be allowed in the virtuous: a philosopher ought to prescribe to himself the holy laws which the gods, and the ministers of the gods have established. These maxims of Porphyry may serve those who press the observation of the strictest morals, and who recommend so much celibacy. “What would become of the world, say we to them, if every body followed your advice?” “Do not trouble yourself about that,” may they answer; “few people will take us at our word.” The anabaptists make good use of the like answer, touching their condemning the holding places of magistracy: they know well enough that masters will never be wanting; and that, let their censures and exhortations be never so pathetic, there will ever be more competitors than employments. This puts me in mind of a divine of the church of England, whom some endeavoured to persuade that the tenet of passive obedience ought, to be renounced, as entirely opposite to the public good: “Never fear,” answered he, “that the people will thereby be more apt to suffer themselves to be oppressed: for, as you do not fear, by preaching warmly against revenge, to expose thereby your neighbour to insults, for you know well enough that, for all your sermons, he will take care that his insensibility of a box on the ear does not draw more affronts upon him; so, &c.” Porphyry thought, “that the laws do not forbid the people, &c.” may be confirmed by this passage of Cicero. “Aliter leges aliter philosophi tollunt astutias: leges quatenus tenere manu res possunt: philosophi quatenus ratione et intelligentia. —The laws provide against fraudulent practices one way, the philosophers another; the laws, so for only as the hand can reach; the philosophers as far as reason and understanding extend.” And, by this passage of Seneca, Seneca, de Ira, lib. ii, cap. 27. ⁵⁴ “quam augusta innocentia est ad legem bonum esse? quanto latius officiorum patet quam juris regula? quam multa pietas, humanitas, liberalitas, justitia, fides exigunt? quæ omnia extra publicas tabulas sunt.—How confined an innocence is it to be good only in the eye of the law? how much farther does the rule of duty extend, than that of law? how many things piety, humanity, liberality, justice, fidelity, require; all Which are without the written law?”—Art. Gymnosophist.

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It is well known how easily the Roman Catholics give their assent to an infinite number of miracles. They piously believe thousands of stories which are daily published, and look upon the most plausible reasons of those who deny them as mere cavils of obstinate heretics: but if they hear that the protestants spread abroad any miracles, they assume quite a different spirit. They have recourse to all the common places by which the incredulous defend themselves; they deny the fact; they challenge the witnesses; they reproach them with imposture, or a distempered brain; if they cannot deny the fact, they explain it by natural causes, and collect from naturalists and the relations of travellers, a thousand like events: in a word, what they call wrangling, obstinacy, and opposition to good sense, becomes a most solid and reesonable confutation of a falsity; for they make use of the same common-places that the protestants had employed against the monks. There are every where persons who readily believe what is grateful to them, and are the hardest in the world to be persuaded of a thing that is unacceptable to them. If they allege the reasons of their incredulity, they cannot

endure that they should be thought wrong; and if you allege the same reasons against them another time, they cannot endure that they should not be allowed the liberty of ridiculing them. This is the way of human life; it is almost an unavoidable effect of prepossession; two weights and two measures; and if this could not be avoided without laying aside prejudices, the remedy would perhaps be worse than the disease.·—Art. Jonas.

Let us admire the vicissitude of human affairs. Jansenius was rewarded with a mitre for having confounded France upon her entering into alliances with protestant states; and at present, the court of Spain would doubtless give a good prelacy to a doctor of Louvain, who should write as strong a book for the justification of such a league as that book was which Jansenius wrote against France: so true it is that one may attain to the same end by quite contrary means, and that what is good at one time may become very bad at another. The confutation of a book may deserve the reward that was given for the book itself.

Art. Jansenius.

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The Benedictine Montfaucon wrote a book to solve the difficulties that are made against the history of Judith. The method he has taken to preserve to it the rank that is given it in the church of Rome, is more instructive and edifying than that which is made use of by die Romish controvertists in general. The latter are contented to retort the objections. They endeavour to show that the difficulties raised by the protestants against the apocryphal books, may be alleged against the canonical; but Montfaucon touches very slightly upon this, and makes it his business to give a direct answer. His whole recrimination is contained in these words: “are there not many stories in the sacred text, in which we find these and

even greater difficulties, and yet, for all that, nobody goes about to deny the truth of them in a literal sense? Is not the history of Esther full of confusion and difficulties, which it is hardly possible to get clear of? Did ever any one show clearly and certainly who is the Ahasuerus mentioned in that book, and in what time that history ought to be placed? Is it not as difficult to fix the time of the history of Ruth, and the ruin of the tribe of Benjamin? and yet no body dares say, that they are parabolical or enigmatical histories.” I do not know whether he had seen Dr Reynold’s objections, who, of all protestant writers, has bandled the controversy of the apocryphal books with the greatest force.—Art. Judith.

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Juno’s beauty made Jupiter’s adulteries more inexcusable: it is thus Arnobius argues: “and what hath Jupiter to do with other men’s wives? Was not Juno enough for him; and could he not satisfy his lust with the queen of the gods, so famed for her graceful air, beauty, and white hand?” A cavilling sophist might attack this argument of Arnobius, and say, that at a certain period of time, the beauty of women loses all its charms with respect to their husbands, the nature of things being such that they no longer affect us, after we are used to them: “ab assuetis non sit passio.” He would maintain, that this political axiom, that the best methods of preserving dominion, are those that have been made use of to obtain it, is false in the empire of beauty: for if beauty make a conquest, it does not preserve it; a husband who fell in love only because his mistress was handsome, will not continue in love because his wife continues to be so: custom hardens him against that sort of charm, and he makes every day some steps towards insensibility: some come sooner to it, others later; but at last all arrive at it, and the affection which may be, and is frequently preserved, is not grounded upon beauty, but upon

other qualities. Experience shews that the husbands, whose love is most lasting and strong, are not for the generality those who have handsome wives.

Art. Juno.

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Thuanus says, that Languet shewed him a German · lord, who was at a window with his wife, and afterwards asked him with a smile, “If it were in your choice, would you prefer such a handsome woman before the archbishopric of Cologne? ” Thuanus, not knowing what was the drift of his question, said nothing. Languet explained to him the mystery, telling him, that this German lord was the count of Isemburg, who had lately resigned the archbishopric of Cologne to marry Joan de Lignes, sister to the Count of Aremberg. He added, that the suppression of celibacy in Germany was inconvenient to the great protestant lords; for whereas, in the time of popery, they made their daughters nuns, with a certain prospect of seeing them some time or other raised to the dignity of an abbess, in some very rich convent: they were obliged to marry them in a country where people multiply very fast.—Art. Languet.

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Either clergymen should be permitted to marry, or forbidden to keep young servant maids; for the prodigious concubinage of priests, which has scandalized the public for so many ages, owes its origin to the permission of having women about them,. to manage their houses. The intention of the superiors was, that they should confine themselves to the business of servant maids; but they easily suffered themselves to be persuaded to serve to some other purpose: the office of a concubine seemed so convenient to them on all accounts, that their masters had not much trouble to bring them to it. Since Luther’s reformation, the priests have by degrees, grown less scandalous but still at this day their maids, unless they be

very old, are very much suspected to serve them doubly. Generally speaking, in all religions, if any lewd business happens, which occasions complaints against unmarried churchmen, it is almost always on account of their maids. The reason is plain: the temptations on both sides, and the opportunities of sinning, offer themselves more readily and conveniently; and hence it is doubtless, that the easy casuists do very much extenuate the sin of a maid got with child by her master. The latin of the lower age, . furnishes us with a term in this case, which is very expressive. At first, the word “focaria ” was taken in a good sense; it signified a woman or a maid, who served in the house, and dressed her master’s diet; but afterwards it was made use of only to signify the concubines of the clergy; the reason was, that most of their maids continued indeed to be their cooks, but besides that, also lay with their masters. Let us conclude that, it ought to be a rule of discipline in all countries, not to permit young unmarried clergymen to keep young maid servants.—Art. Launoi.

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Martin Knutzen drew up a summary of his system in a short letter, of which several copies were spread. Micrælius’s continuator has reduced the contents of that letter to six articles. “I. That there is neither God, nor devil. II. That the magistrates are to be looked upon as nothing, the churches are to be despised, and the priests rejected. III. That knowledge and reason, together with conscience, which teaches to live honestly, to hurt nobody, and give every one his own, is in the room of magistrates and priests. IV. That there is no difference between marriage and fornication. V. That there is but one life: that after the present there is neither reward nor punishment. VI. That the scripture contradicts itself.” This system, besides its impiety, is also plainly extravagant; for one must be stark mad, to believe that

mankind can subsist without magistrates. It is true, they would not be necessary, if all men would follow the dictates of conscience, which this impious man exhibits to us; but are they followed even in those countries, where the judges punish, with the greatest severity, the injustice done to our neigbour? I do not know but that it may be said, that there is no impertinence, be it never so extravagant, but may teach us some truth or other. The follies of this German shew us, that the ideas of natural religion, the ideas of virtue, the impressions of reason, in a word, the light of conscience, may subsist in the mind of man, even after  the ideas of the existence of God, and the firm belief of a life to come, are extinguished in it.

Art. Knutzen.

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Ausonius places it among the sentences of one of the seven wise men of Greece, that a chaste woman frights away calumny:

Quæ dos matronæ pulcherrimæ; vita pudica.
Quæ casta est? de qua mentiri fama veretur.

He supposes that Bias had two questions to answer. The first was, “What is the noblest portion of a woman?” he answered, “a chaste life.” The second was, “what woman is chaste?” he answered, “she whom fame dares not slander.” These rules are severe, will some say; for they condemn all women that have been exposed to obloquy; and yet it is certain that there are most virtuous women, who have not been able to avoid it. It must be owned, that this maxim of Bias cannot serve as a general rule without exception; but generally it is a sign of a very wise conduct, both as to the inside and outside, to enjoy the reputation of a chaste woman without any opposition or contradiction whatsoever.—Art. Judith.

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The psalm “miserere ” was sung at the reconciliation

of Henry the great, where du Perron and d’Ossat prostrated all along on their faces, representing the king of France, in the presence of the pope, and the consistory, received in the king’s stead his penance decreed by the holy see, which was to adjust to every verse, a stroke of a switch, over head, shoulders, and back, down to the feet, from the beginning of the psalm to the end. De Perron, in his letters, shews the verbal process of the absolution of the king by pope Clement VIII. D’Ossat, his companion in the royal penance, shews how gentle it was. In the instruction of the inquisition, there was this hyperbolical expression, when the choristers sung “miserere mei,” the pope at every verse, “verberabat et percutiebat humeros procuratorum cujuslibet ipsorum virga, quam in manibus tenebat.—Beat and smote the shoulders of the proxies, with a rod which he held in his hand.” “It was a ceremony,” says du Perron, “we no more felt, than we could have felt a fly creeping up our clotlies.”—Art. Henry IV.

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Whilst Hofman was planting his gospel at Empden with great heat, and stoutly rebaptizing people, there was an old man there, who possessed him with a desire of returning to Strasburg. He prophesied, that the magistrates of Strasburg should imprison Hofman, but that at six months’ end the prisoner should be delivered, and should go and preach the gospel over all the world, as another Elias, having with him a great train of prophets, and the one hundred and forty four thousand sealed persons, mentioned in the Revelation. Hofman having publicly disputed with the ministers the eleventh of June, 1582, and not ceasing to spread his enthusiasms, after he had been confounded in that dispute, was put into prison. When he saw that part of the prophecy was accomplished, he became more insolent. He shook off the dust from his feet, he threw his hat upon the

ground, and protested before God, that he would feed upon nothing but bread and water, till he should point out with his finger him that sent him. His hopes were confounded, for he died in prison. A hundred instances shew, that the most chimerical predictions have had some parts of them confirmed by the event; which has given strength to the error; nothing contributing more to the drawing in of these visionaries and their adherents. It is especially with relation to these matters, that it may be said, “the end crowns the work.” Men should be very cautious of judging of the whole by a part, “ex ungue leonem.” The conclusion is to be waited for, and the first success ought to be distrusted; for it may be a snare, and a dangerous -allurement.—Art. Hofman.

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I cannot think on the worship that was paid to the goddess Juno in so many places and with so much pomp, without believing there were mixed with it I know not what impressions of the custom which is observed with respect to women. When a woman has a share in the government, she is much more attended, honoured, and respected, than a man in the same authority. Consider how the wives of the governors of provinces are courted, when they are known to have a great interest. The honours that are paid to them exceed those that are given to their husbands; this is the practice of the earth, and it is carried into heaven. Jupiter was served as a king, and Juno as an ambitious, haughty, and revengeful queen, who divided with him the government of the world, and assisted in all his councils.

Οὔτέ ποτ' εις εὐνὴν Λιὸς ἤλυθε μητιόεντος,
Οὔτέ ποτ' εις θῶκον πολυδαίδαλον, ὡς τοπάρος τερ,
Αὺτῷ 'φεζομένη πυκινάς φῥαζέσκετο βουλας.

Nunquam ad cubile Jovis venit consiliarii,
Nunquam ad thronum varium, sicuti antea
Cum ipso sedens, sapientia consultans consilia. See Homer in the Hymn to Apollo. ⁵⁵

I dare say that the extravagances that Christians are fallen into towards the virgin Mary, which go beyond all that the heathens invented in honour of Juno, are owing to the same original, I mean to the custom of honouring women and making court to them with greater zeal and reverence than to the other sex. We cannot be without women, either in a civil or reli-     gious life. He that should take from the Romish communion the devotion to saints, and especially to her whom they call the queen of heaven and the queen of angels, would leave a frightful gap in it: the rest would fall in pieces, and would be “arena sine calce, scopæ dissolutae.” Erasmus, blaming the custom of saluting the virgin Mary in the pulpit after the beginning of the sermon says, “that it is contrary to the example of all the ancients, who were rather to be imitated than such sort of people, as perhaps to please women, have herein trod in the steps of the heathens.”—Art. Juno.

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The ancient Romans designed to make conquests, and there is nothing more necessary for such a design, than to restore by a peace what was gained by the war; for in vain you take towns and provinces, you will never be the greater for it, if you are obliged to restore them by the articles of peace. The Romans, to succeed in forming a vast empire, spurred their generals by motives of glory and scruples of religion, to gain new countries and not to lose the conquests they had once made. They never granted a triumph to such as did no more than recover what the enemy had taken; and they gave out that it was violating the religion of the God Terminus and his sacred auspices, to yield up the frontiers of the empire. The Turks proposing to make vast conquests, and to lay the foundation of a great dominion, have more particularly brought religion into that design; for they said that it did not permit them to restore a town

wherein there was a mosque, to its first possessors; for which reason they made great haste to build a mosque in their new conquests. This was to engage themselves to keep them in making peace, and to oblige the governors of a town to defend themselves by a principle of conscience with extraordinary obstinacy. But they have lately experienced the uselessness of this nice policy. The treaty of Carlowitz, concluded in the year 1698, exposed them to the same raillery that St Augustin made use of against the Roman god Terminus, who gave way to necessity under Jovian the emperor. The sultan has been obliged to yield up a great number of places with mosques in them to the Christian princes. In vain it was represented to him that this was offending against the maxims of his religion; there was a necessity for doing it, and of two evils the least was to be chosen.

Art. Jovian.

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As long as the world is a world, there will be every where ambulatory doctrines dependant on times and places; true birds of passage which are in one country in the summer and in another in the winter; wandering lights, that like the Cartesian comets illuminate successively several vortices. Whoever pretends to set up for a censor upon this occasion, will be looked on as a morose critic and a native of Plato’s commonwealth.—-Art Hotman.

Myron, venerable for his hoary head, went to Lais to ask a night of her, but was sent back without so much as being heard. He thought he had found the reason of her slight, and hoped that if he should offer himself with a brown head of hair, he should be admitted. He therefore changed the colour of his hair and returned to Lais. “What a fool you are,” said she, “to come to ask a thing of me which I have refused

your father.” Ausonius tells the story very prettily.

Canus rogabat Laidis noctem Myron:
Tulit repulsam protinus.
Causamque sensit: et caput fuligine
Fucavit atra candidum,
Idemque vultu, crine non idem Myron,
Orabat oratum prius. Sed illa formam cum capillo comparans
Similemque non ipsum rata,
Fortasse et ipsum, sed volens ludo frui,
Sic est adorta callidum:
Inepte, quid me, quod recusavi, rogas?
Patri negavi jam tuo.

Old hoary Myron setting age aside,
One night of Lais ask’d, and was deny’d;
The cause he found and black’d his silver hair,
And once more waited on the cruel fair.
By the chang’d colour of his locks deceiv'd,
The nymph address’d him, not the same believ’d:
“Fool that thou art, fondly to hope to gain
A favour which your father ask’d in vain!”

Art. Lais.

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It has been a dispute for many ages, whether it be better to educate children at home or to send them to the universities. There are reasons on both sides; but that which is most plausible against sending them to the universities, is the great danger of being drawn into debauchery. Studious scholars are very scarce, but those who disturb others either by their bad example, their solicitations, or their railleries, are very numerous.—Art. Kirchman.

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I have known men of sense who have wondered, that in kingdoms where the authority of the prince is almost boundless, the instructors of youth are suffered

to read the ancient Greek and Latin authors, which contain so many examples of the love of liberty, and so many anti-monarchical maxims. But this is no more surprising than to see republican states suffer the professors of law to explain the Code and the Digests; where there are so many principles which suppose the supreme and inviolable authority of the emperor. Here are therefore two things which seem equally surprising, and which at the bottom ought to be no matter of surprise; for setting aside many reasons that might be offered, may we not say, that the same works which contain the poison, either with respect to monarchies or republics, contain also the antidote? If you see on one hand the great maxims of liberty, and the noble examples of courage with which it has been maintained or recovered, you see on the other, factions, seditions, and tumultuous freaks, that have troubled and at last ruined innumerable little states, which showed so great an aversion to tyranny in ancient Greece. Does it not seem, that this picture is a lesson very capable of undeceiving those who are scared at the bare idea of monarchy? Hobbes believed so, since he with that view published a translation of an Athenian historian. Turn the tables, and you will find that this picture will give a very different instruction from that before, and fortify the aversion to monarchy; for it will be asked whence comes it that the Greeks and Romans chose rather to be exposed to these confusions than to live under a monarch? Was it not from the hard condition to which tyrants had reduced them? And must it not be a very severe, intolerable, and deplorable evil, which they would deliver themselves from at so high a price? It is certain that the description which history gives us of the conduct of several monarchs, frights us and makes our hair stand on end.

Art. Hobbes.

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It is not long ago, that an ingenious man, and who is now a protestant, told me, that when he was a Benedictine, he was desired to preach in a convent of Franciscans, at the festival of the Portiuncula. They specified on what they would have him chiefly insist. He partly complied with their desire; but he gave his subject a certain turn, which did not please them. Some of them artfully let him know it; he excused himself, and then asked them, as among friends, “whether it was reasonable to affirm in the pulpit so many things which are not true?” “what then will you have us do?” replied they: “will you have us starve?” which leads me to the third observation. There are several abuses in the Romish church, which, in all likelihood, will last as long as that church. It will be to no purpose to go from a learned age to one more learned; those things will not alter. It is true, that they sprang up in the times of ignorance, but ignorance was not the only cause, nor even the principal cause of their birth. The wants of a society, as well those of food, as commodious lodging, the interest they had in shewing the people an altar well set off, and rich church ornaments, all this required some wonderful descriptions to exalt the privileges of a certain saint, or of a certain chapel, or of some particular festival. It was a daily fund of subsistence; and, when the anniversary feast came, then the order had its harvest and vintage. Now the wants that I speak of, are not subject to the vicissitudes of light and darkness; they are the same at all times, in an ignorant as well as in a learned age: therefore, though knowledge is greater and more common, yet they produce still the same effects. Philosophical heads are puzzled whether they shall admire, in this, the long forbearance, or the long anger, of heaven: and some would willingly apply here the “tantæne animis coelestibus irae,” which an English doctor applies to the

errors in which the history of nations have been plunged for so many ages.—Art. Francis.

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Two repartees, uttered by Henry IV when only fifteen years of age, have been preserved to us by his illustrious mother, Jane d’Albret, queen of Navarre. One day, La Motte Fenelon addressed himself particularly to the prince of Navarre, and seemed to appear surprized that he, who was so young, should interest himself in a quarrel, which properly concerned only his uncle, the prince of Conde and the Huguenots who were in a war against the king. “I do so,” answered the prince, “because, it being evident that under pretence of rebellion, with which they falsely charge the prince, my uncle, and the Huguenots, our enemies intend no less than the entire destruction of the royal branch of Bourbon: we have a mind to die altogether, to save the expenses of mourning, which otherwise we should be obliged to wear for oue after another.” Upon another occasion, the same gentleman, addressing his discourse to the same prince of Navarre, deplored the miseries with which the flames of that war were about to devour the whole kingdom, as he expressed himself. “Very well,” answered the prince, “these flames may be quenched by one bucket of water.” “How so?” replied La Motte Fenelon. “By making the cardinal of Lorrain, the real and principal incendiary of France, drink it till he burst,” said the prince.— Art. Henry iv.

The Protestants had very nearly got the upper hand, at the beginning of Charles IXth’s reign; and if they had, God knows what would have become of the religion that had persecuted them under the three preceding reigns. If the king of Navarre, who had openly declared for them, had been able to discover the snare that the other party laid for him, he would have continued firm in their communion:

There needed no more to have procured them the victory; for he was lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and there had been no difficulty then to have brought over Catherine de Medicis to the reformed religion. But he suffered himself to be cheated by imaginary hopes, and had not penetration enough to discover the grossness of the snare; he took the island of Sardinia, a country of exile, a country miserable and disgraced: he took it, I say, so well he knew the map, for one of those fortunate islands mentioned in the fables. Being thus grossly deceived by the artifices of the Spaniards, and the cardinal legate, he abandoned the Protestants; and thus see, how little was wanting to their becoming master.—Art. Hospital.

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Generally speaking, those men, who pretend to be handsome, and who have recourse to art to set off the lustre of their complexions, and who often consult their glass, that the symmetry of their hair and curls may charm women, are not fit for war. They are mere beaux and sparks; the assemblies of ladies, feasts, and balls, are the places where they signalize themselves: the fatigue of war does not agree with them; it requires men who are not afraid of being sun-burnt: bravery rather inspires a desire of frightening the enemy with a martial look, than of pleasing women with a beauish air. But there is an exception to that general rule in Surena, who shewed himself a valiant man in battle; he performed all the duties of a general, with all imaginable vigour and application; and yet he painted, and was very careful of his hair; which puts me in mind of a common topic very contrary to Caesar’s practice. It is a common maxim in war, that soldiers ought not to be permitted to enjoy the sweets of a delicious life; that it is the way to enervate them and make them lazy; and, among other instances, the

fault of Hannibal, after the battle of Cannae, is frequently alleged. He quartered his army in several places, where the soldiers using themselves to a voluptuous life, and wine, baths, good cheer and women, destroyed that martial vigour, which had made them so formidable. The delights of Capua were to him what the battle of Cannae had been to the Romans. The maxim grounded upon such examples was neglected by Julius Cæsar; and he had no occasion to repent that he had not followed it. He suffered his soldiers to plunge themselves into all manner of debauchery after a great victory, and used to say that they could fight stoutly, even when they were perfumed. “Nonnunquam post magnam pugnam atque victoriam, remisso officiorum munere, licentiam omnem passim lasciviendi permittebat: jactare solitus, milites suos etiam unguentatos bene pugnare posse.” Art. Turenne.

It is a most certain maxim that good things ought not to be suppressed, because some make an ill use of them: and therefore, since the im-  proving of his mind is very worthy of man, and the appointing of masters for that end is a good thing, it ought not to be abolished under pretence, that some learned men make an ill use of their knowledge to raise theological disputes. To which I add, that the ill consequences of ignorance are still more to be feared. Ignorance would not prevent divisions: some men less ignorant than others, though they had never been in a university, would be so presumptuous and so vain as to sow new doctrines, and might establish them the more easily, because their hearers would be silly and ignorant.

Art. Stancarus

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The censuring of a book, is, properly speaking, an action brought against an author before his true judges. He is summoned to appear before the public

to be told, either that he argues wrong, or that he understands certain things in a wrong sense. He is therefore cited before a lawful tribunal; for it belongs to the public to give judgment on such sort of accusations, both in the first and last instances. He ought not therefore to appeal to other judges. This would be too plainly betraying his own weakness; this would be changing the order of things, and endeavouring to supply his want of knowledge, by the favour he hopes his intriguing may procure him before the tribunal of the magistrates. But I except out of this rule those authors, who are wounded in their reputation: for if a critic be not contented to censure a wrong version, a false principle, a wrong consequence, an unfaithful quotation, &c. if he will also charge a blot in the family, a robbery, an adultery, a state crime, &c. it is very allowable to bring him before the secular judges. The accused person, let him be never so learned, may without appearing to mistrust his pen, very well remove the cause from one tribunal to another, and declining the jurisdiction of the public, have recourse to the magistrates and the laws established by sovereigns against defamatory libels. I do not say that he is obliged to have recourse to them; for he may be contented with the short way of giving the lie, in imitation of Father Valerian: he may with a ‘ mentiris impudentissime,'—thou art a most impudent liar, confound his accusers, and fully justify himself, unless they make out their accusations. So that every author, struck with this thunderbolt of honest Father Valerian, will be accounted a public calumniator by all equitable judges, if he do not clearly prove the scandalous facts he had broached against the honour of his neighbour. His silence is a full vindication of those whom he accuses, “actore non probante absolvitur reus; if the prosecutor bring no proof the accused is acquitted of course.”

Art. Tavernier.

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It was decreed by the Roman senate, that a statue should be consecrated to Venus Verticordia, converter of hearts. This particular is to be found in several authors, but in none with so many circumstances as in Valerius Maximus. Ovid does not forget the cause of that new devotion, he says in express words that it was occasioned by the loss of chastity.

Roma pudicitia proavorum tempore lapsa est:
Cumæum, veteres, consuluistis anum.
Templa jubet Veneri fieri: quibus ordine factis,
Inde Venus verso nomina corde tenet.

Ovid. Fastor. lib. iv, ver. 157.

Of old when Roman chastity was fled,
Our fathers, anxious for the marriage-bed,
At the Cumæan prophetess enquir'd,
To know what offering the gods required.
She bid a temple to be rear'd anon
Unto the Paphian queen of love; which done,
Venus did strait acquire another name,
From working changes on the heart it came.

I have read in Pausanias Pausan. lib. ix, pag. xvi, cap. 742. ⁵⁶ that Harmonia, Cadmus’s wife, consecrated three statues to Venus at Thebes; the first to Venus Urania; the second to Venus Pandemos, and the third to Venus Apostrophia. The first was for spiritual love, the second for bodily love, and the third was designed to prevent extravagant or unnatural passions. The Romans, you see, might have learned of other nations to honour Venus under the title of Verticordia, for there is no great difference between this title and that of Apostrophia: one implies the notion of a converter, and the other that of a dissuader, if I may be allowed to use such a word.—Art. Sulpicia.

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Stilpo would not allow that a thing be affirmed of

another, but that every thing should be affirmed of itself, and that the attribute of a proposition should not reach farther than the subject. Here is the ground he went upon: that two things may be affirmed one of another, they ought to have the same nature; for in every affirmative and true proposition, the attribute and the subject are really the same. But man and good are not of the same nature; the definition of the one differs from the definition of the other; and therefore good and man cannot be joined together, one of them cannot be affirmed of the other. In like manner running cannot be attributed to a horse, it is an action, Che definition whereof is not the same with that of a horse. Besides, should you affirm of a man that he is good, and of a horse that he runs; that is, should you affirm that good and man are the same thing, and that a horse and running are the same thing, how could you affirm that aliments and medicaments are good, and that lions and dogs run? These are logical subtleties, whereby all languages would be confounded, and all men would be obliged to be silent, or to speak ridiculously; and yet a sophist trained up in the art of disputing, and used to cavils about abstractions, would give a great deal of trouble to his adversaries, if he undertook to maintain Stilpo’s opinion to the utmost. These trifles, though contemptible in themselves, and such as cannot perplex a man of solid judgment, might nevertheless carry a wrong-headed man into Spinozism. For those who deny universal attributes, cannot admit any individuums that resemble one another. They must say that two beings, of which the attribute of substance should be truly affirmed, would be one and the same substance; which is to say in equivalent terms with Spinoza, that there is but one substance in the whole universe.—Art. Stilpo.

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I must not conceal that those who are willing to

know the date of each event, are very much displeased with Suetonius. That historian has wholly neglected it; he does not observe any chronological order, and indeed it was no part of his design; and it is to be observed that he is excusable for pitching upon a method which excused him from following that order. There were histories enough which contained an exact account of the reign of the emperors, according to the time in which every thing had been done; and therefore he did not think it proper to compose a work of the same nature, but rather chose to discover the private actions of the emperors, and to put together in one chapter what concerned their marriages, and in another chapter what concerned their education, their friendships, their buildings, &c. He pitched upon the most difficult part of history; for it is much easier to collect the materials of wars or other private affairs, than to give a particular account of what passes in a palace; I mean of the inclinations and private actions of the monarch; what he was as a husband, as a father, as a brother, as a master, as a friend, as a lover; what caprices he was subject to,    what clothes he wore, what meals he made, &c. I am sure that if a man should undertake at this day to write the history of the popes, emperors, or kings of France, &c. in imitation of Suetonius, running back to the last one hundred and fifty years, more or less, as he did, he would meet with great difficulties; and if he succeeded as well as Suetonius, he would be admired and looked upon as an excellent author of a secret history. Oh, how fit would such a book be to enrich a bookseller!—Art. Suetonius.

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To be forced by the circumstances of time and place to say nothing, though silence may produce suspicion, such is the fate of those who are persecuted by enemies whose faction is uppermost, and supported

by the secular power. Those enemies publish whatever they please, and lie impudently, to conceal their shameful artifices and their iniquity from the public. Those who are calumniated by them, could not make a good defence without saying some things that would exasperate their common master, and expose them to new miseries; they are therefore silent; but such a conduct produces an ill effect: the enemy triumphs at it, and many people hasty in their judgments, put a sinister interpretation upon it. There is nothing more advantageous, according to the notions of the world, than to be always for the strongest faction; and on the contrary, nothing can be more disadvantageous with respect to our. temporal interest, than to be for the party that is in the right, if it be inferior in credit and power.—Art. Strigelius.

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AthenÆus says that Stilpo sitting at table with Glycera, upbraided her with corrupting young men. To which she answered, “You are charged with the same fault; for people complain that you spoil their judgment with your needless and sophistical subtleties; and they add, that it signifies but little which way they are spoiled, whether it be by a philosopher or a courtezan.”—Art. Stilpo.

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It is impossible to describe sufficiently the ravings of the Roman Catholic bigots, who took upon them to decry Henry IV and his successor, for protecting the Protestants in Holland and Germany against the house of Austria. The books that were published against the alliance of France with the Protestant states are without number, and it is certain there was a great deal of oddness in the conduct of that crown; for while it laboured to extirpate the Huguenots in its own dominions, it supported the Protestants elsewhere, and enabled them not only to keep their own ground, but likewise to aggrandize

themselves. I have in another place, taken notice of this contradiction, and I shall now confirm what  I said there by a remarkable passage. I find it at the end of an observation concerning the letters which Pope Pius V wrote into France, to condemn the treaties of peace between Roman Catholics and heretics.—Art. Surgier.

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Montaigne makes very fine observations upon the capacity of the soul, whereby a man may turn his mind sometimes one way and sometimes another, and is able to do things that seem inconsistent. Montaigne’s Essays, book iii, in the last chapter. ⁵⁷ “I am well pleased to see a general of an army at the foot of a breach he designs to attack, talking freely at dinner-time with his friends; and Brutus, against whom and against the Roman liberty, heaven and earth were combined, stealing some hours in the night, as he goes the rounds, to read Polybius. Little souls buried under the weight of affairs, know not how to extricate themselves; they know not how to lay them aside, and re-assume them.”

---------- ô fortes pejoraque passi,
Mecum saepe viri, nunc vino pellite curas,
Cras ingens iterabimus æquor.

Horat. Ode vii. ver. 30, lib. i.

---------- Cheer, rouze your force,
For we have often suffer'd worse;
Drink briskly round, dispel all cloudy sorrow,
Drink round, we'll plow the deep to-morrow.

Creece.
Art. TURENNE.

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One day as Rhodope was bathing, and her maids taking care of her clothes, an eagle came down, seized one of her shoes, and carried it away to Memphis,

and let it fall upon the lap of Psammitichus, king of Egypt, who was then sitting upon his tribunal, to administer justice. The King admired the beauty of the shoe, and the conduct of the eagle, and ordered that the lady, who had been robbed of her shoe, should be looked for all over Egypt. They found her, and brought her to him, and he married her. I do not believe it, though fortune is sometimes pleased with such sports: “inopinatorum atque inexpectatorum amans fortuna.” Rhodope, Æsop’s fellow-slave, would have been well contented to marry that monstrous man. What a wonderful alteration had she really become the wife of a great monarch, and one of those,

Quales ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
Extollit, quoties voluit fortuna jocari.

Juven. Sat. iii. ver. 39.

Whom fortune does in merriment advance,
And places topmost on the wheel of chance.

Observe, by the bye, that wit may prevent the ill effects of ugliness, with respect to a fine woman. Æsop, though the ugliest of all men, moved Rhodope’s heart. Herodot. lib. ii. cap. xxxiv. ⁵⁸—Art. Rhodope.

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An ambitious and mercenary spirit is the fault of most generals, who are not sovereigns; but when they are soldiers of fortune, and in the pay of a prince whose subjects they are not, they are more apt to be guilty of that sort of honourable treason, which consists in not depriving a vanquished enemy of all resources, and to build him a bridge of gold, that the war may be kept up. They hope no peace will be made, whilst neither of the parties get a considerable advantage, or such as is not decisive; and therefore they leave something behind to do, and contrive

the matter so, that the enemy quickly makes up his losses.—Art. Sforza.

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It is commonly believed that all those, who deny the existence of God, likewise deny, by a necessary consequence, the existence of all spirits, and the immortality of the soul. I do not wonder that this should be a common opinion, for I think there is no example of the separation of those two blasphemies, I mean that there never was any Atheist, who believed the existence of devils and the immortality of the soul; or that there never was a man persuaded of the truth of magic, but believed the existence of God. Some Christians who are orthodox in all other points, cannot believe that bad angels concern themselves with any thing, and reject, without any exception, what is commonly said of magic and sorcery. If they were contented to say that the existence and operation of bad angels can only be proved from the scripture, I should not so much wonder at their opinion; for it is certain that reason affords solid arguments against the empire of the devil, which are grounded on our notions of God’s wisdom and goodness; but it is a great piece of temerity, to say no worse, in those who deny that the devil has any power, to pretend to reconcile their opinion with the scripture. However it be, the following consequence is false and unjust. “You do not believe that there are any devils, and therefore you do not believe that there is a God.” As for this other consequence, you do not believe that there is a God, and therefore you do not believe that there are any good or bad angels, it seems to be very certain; for, as I have already said, no example can be alleged to disprove it.—Art. Ruggieri.

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Regius lodged in the house of the famous Zazius, and was much beloved by him. He chose in Zazius’s library all the books which he thought proper for the improvement of his studies, and transcribed all the marginal notes which that learned professor had written upon them. Thus that young scholar spent a great part of the night. Zazius, who slept but little, and got up sometimes to walk, and thereby to allay the trouble of his want of sleep, surprized him as he was transcribing those notes, and told him in a loving manner, you are stealing the fruits of my studies. Sometimes he found him asleep, and then he would lay huge volumes on his shoulders until he waked. I mention these little things, because I know that several people are extremely well pleased to see such marks of the urbanity and kindness of a professor, and of the diligence and aptitude of a scholar.

Art. Regius.

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Tycho Brahe very much esteemed the minister Pitiscus’s capacity in the mathematics, and wished that the number of mathematician preachers were greater, for he believed that it would give them a more solid judgment, and put an end to several disputes. Here are his words: “I have with pleasure received the ingenious and compendious book of the most learned Pitiscus concerning trigonometry, and I beg you will return him my thanks. I wish there were many such preachers that understood geometry; perhaps there would be more circumspection and solid judgment, and less strife and contention amongst them. If he will please to write, and consult with me about those studies, he shall find me a very ready correspondent.” This wish of Tycho Brahe is grounded upon a very good reason, but it is liable to some inconveniences. A pompous and florid eloquence is necessary to preachers; a dry and close way of

reasoning, like that of mathematicians, is not proper for them, and would not make such an impression upon their hearers as the state of man requires.

Art. Pitiscus.

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Though Sennertus was pleased to say that the souls of brutes do not subsist after this life, as human souls do, he laid down a doctrine whereby it plainly appears that the souls of beasts are of the same species with those of men. The difference of their fate, as to duration, does not proceed from the difference of their perfections, but from the free will of the supreme master, who is a cause wholly external. Medals and money, which princes order to be stamped, are an image of the conduct which that physician ascribes to God. Medals are stamped to last for ever; money is coined to last till a new order to the contrary, for after a certain time, it is cried down and melted, and converted into other forms, and medals and money are made of the same metal. According to Sennertus, a human soul is like medals, and the soul of a brute is like money. This is a dangerous opinion; it would thence follow that we can only be sure of the immortality of our souls by revelation.

Art. Sennertus.

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St Chrysostom says, “that the rod of Moses which made water spring out of the rock, wrought a less difficult miracle than was done when milk sprang out of Sarah’s breasts. “Non sic admirabile fuit quod ex petra in deserto scaturierint fontes aquarum quando illam virga Moyses percussit, sicut de vulva jam emortua puerum nasci, et lactis fontes scaturire.” Chrysost. Homil. xlvi. ⁵⁹ Here are the words of another father: “Portabat ulterum

gravem talis mater quæ inanis ambulare vix poterat.—Marcidae mammae quas in vacuos folles subducti succi detrimenta laxaverant, lactei fontis ubertate tenduntur.” August. Serm. lxviii. de Temp. ⁶⁰—Art. Sarah.

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Spanheim was rigid in point of innovation. It was a maxim with him that we ought to make war even against our own brethren, whenever they act against orthodoxy.“The neglect of little evils” said he, “will sometimes occasion the greatest disorders.— Saepe profitentem audivimus se licet mallet cum ecclesiae hostibus congredi, tamen et bellum illis etiam fratribus indicendum judicare, qui vel data opera, vel ex ignorantia et infirmitate per cuniculos illam subruerent. Quod enim initio parvum videtur, id saepe neglectum magna incendia dare in progressu. Cum cui quis semel patrocinium commodavit ei mordicus inhaeret, et saepe error non detectus cum occulte serpat, placere incipit, et tandem pudor est retractare quæ semel defenderis.” A hundred fine reasons may be alleged to maintain this common topic, and this great maxim; but, in order to persuade, they ought to be attended with choler. With such an ingredient, they generally produce a conviction, but without it, they are weak, and are confuted by a hundred other fine maxims. Heidanus observes, “that the person he praises, was a man of a fiery temper.” That fire is a wonderful light to shew that the reasons alleged for toleration are bad ones, and that those who cry out “to arms, to arms, bella, horrida bella,” have well dived into the bottom of things. “Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo;” no matter, though they be friends, allies, or relations; let us fall upon them, “per calcatum perge patrem,—this is the cause of truth.”—Art. Spanheim.

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Rittangelius was supposed to have been circumcised. This unfortunate man was married to a woman who abused him, and was supported in her humours by her relations, who lived at Elbing. That minister used his utmost endeavours to make them friends, and was a witness of the violent passions of the wife, from which he drew a good argument against the common opinion of her husband’s being circumcised; for he argued thus: “that woman, during her passion, vented impudently whatever might contribute to the dishonour of her husband; but she never reproached him with being circumcised, therefore he is not circumcised.”—Art. Rittangelius.

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Pyrrhus was a man of an exorbitant ambition, and of a stirring and restless spirit. He understood war to admiration; he executed his designs with an incomparable courage and resolution. But he was much fitter to conquer, than to preserve what he conquered; because, at the very same time he made new conquests, he framed vast designs, and filled his mind with new hopes, which kept him from thinking by what means he might preserve what he had acquired. “Ut ad devincenda regna invictus habebatur, ita devictis acquisitisque celeriter carebat. Tanto melius studebat acquirere imperia quam retinere.” Antigonus compared him with a gamester, who throws well, but knows not how to make an advantage of it. The same thing was said of Hannibal: “Non omnia nimirum eidem Dii dederunt; vincere scis Annibal, victoria uti nescis.—The gods do not bestow all on one man. O Hannibal, you know how to vanquish, but not how to use a victory.” It is not an unusual fault: our age affords us several examples of generals, who knew not how to make an advantage of their victories. Things are directed by God in that manner,

lest a nation be too much oppressed at one time. We might quote a thousand sayings like these two:

Non minor est virtus quàm quærere parta tueri.

Ovid. de Arte Amandi, lib. ii. v. 12.

No less a virtue it is to keep than get.

Parari singula acquirendo facilius possunt, quàm universa tenere.

It is more easy to get by degrees, than to keep all when got.

Liv. lib. xxxii.
Art. Pyrrhus.

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To distinguish well whether a transcriber has retrenched, or added any thing from a party view, we should know what the factions of state or religion were that would prepossess him, and of what consequence these passages, suppressed or added, might be to those factions. If they can neither serve nor hurt any party, we are to suppose that there was not any treacherous design in the addition or omission; but, we may suppose the contrary when they have a particular relation to some violent dispute.

Art. Polonus.

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BudÆus  tells a story, which has been printed, and we find in it a notable trick of Politian. The thing is this: that professor set forth, with an emphasis in his auditory, many things as his own, which he had from Herodotus. John Lascaris, who was one of his hearers, took him aside and reproved him for his boldness. “I could never have believed,” answered Politian, “that such a Grecian as you are, should have been ignorant of the artifice that is made use of in order to get the esteem of the public. There are three or four, at most, among my readers who have read Herodotus; what is that in comparison of that crowd of scholars, who applaud and extol me to the sky? I

am apt to believe that you will not be so malicious as to undertake to prejudice them against me; and I think it would be to little purpose if you went about it.”—Art. Politian.

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Prynn, in his Fulcimentum Gladii, alleges all that can be said for the power of the sword against errors; he brings in arguments, authorities, custom, the decisions of doctors, the confessions of faith, &c. Father de Sainte Marthe, a French Benedictine, made no small use of this book, to show, that the edict of Nantes was lawfully repealed: see his answer to the complaints of the protestants, or the extract which M. Cousin has given of it. In the year 1643, Prynn began to oppose the independants, who thought that the suppression of episcopacy would prove insignificant, and even prejudicial, if people were to submit to the synodal government of the puritans. Vossius wrote the following words to Grotius in September, 1643. “There is one thing in which the opposers of episcopacy do not agree. Many would have the whole power of governing the church lodged in the college of presbyters; others say, this yoke is heavier than that of episcopacy: wherefore they contend, that it should be left to every particular ecclesiastic, to teach and govern his flock according to the word of God; and thus, being distinct both from episcopalians and presbyterians (as they are called) they have gained the name of independants. Prynn, whose authority is so great in parliament, is said to be of the former opinion: but many, who agree with him in other things, oppose him in this; and, it is the opinion of many, that, after having triumphed over both the regal and episcopal power, they will soon quarrel among themselves, there being many who abhor the power of the presbytery no less than that of the bishops.” Vossius, Epist. cccclxii, p. m. 409, col. 1. ⁶¹ Here

is an instance of men’s inclination to run into extremes; part of those who hated episcopacy, were against the presbyterian synods, and pretended that it was a more intolerable yoke than that of the hierarchy. Prynn strenuously opposed them, and was for inflicting a corporal punishment upon them.—Art. Prynn.

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To assign no other cause than God, does not become a philosopher. Tell me, I pray, suppose there were rational inhabitants in the planets, and they should come down into one of our houses, and discover the use of rooms, of windows, of bolts, &c. and at last they should be contented to admire the providence of God, who has raised such a convenient building for men, would they not rightly be accounted ignorant? they would not know that this house was built by men, and that a human architect directed the situation of the stones, boards, &c. according to the uses he designed them for. It is true, man receives that knowledge from God; but God is not the next, natural, and immediate cause of that building. The same ought to be said of the machinery of trees and animals; they depend upon the particular direction of some second cause, which has received from God the knowledge and industry that are requisite for such a work. The difficulty lies in assigning that second cause: some will have it that the substantial form of each mixed body is a spirit, on which God has bestowed the knowledge that is necessary to produce the temper, and effects of that mixed body. Dr Henry More, who believed the pre-existence of souls, Henr. Morus, de Anima, lib. ii, cap. iv. ⁶² was of opinion that, being united to matter, they themselves frame an organized body to reside in it. That hypothesis may be confuted by our ignorance of what ought to be done, in order to put together nerves, veins, bones, &c. It might be answered, that the

soul forgets all those ideas as soon as her lodging is finished, because the coarseness of the organs of a human body breaks the communication she had before with very subtle occasional causes: but I had rather suppose that the soul itself does not direct the motions necessary for the growth of its own body; I had rather ascribe that direction to another spirit. If any one had a mind to rectify the suppositions of Avicenna, he might say that there is a created intelligence, which presides over the organization of animals, and makes, as it were, a kind of general manufacture of them; that it has an infinite number of workers under its direction, some for the bodies of birds, others for the bodies of fishes, &c. just as in our towns we see a great variety of tradesmen; some make watches, others make clothes, &c.

Art. Sennertius.

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Pyrrhus’s courage and bravery were so great, that one would think he scorned to be beholden to any thing besides his sword; but he had too much experience to have such thoughts; for the greatest warriors have most times made use of intrigues and negociations. Pyrrhus used to send Cineas before him, that he might prepare his way, and remove difficulties. Cineas made out, by his eloquence, the truth of Euripides’ saying, that “any thing that may be done with the sword, may be done likewise with words.” Pyrrhus confessed, that he had got more towns by the fine speeches of Cineas, than by his arms. Art. Pyrrhus.

Puteanus praised his wife and children very much. “There is nothing more agreeable than a good wife,” says he, in a letter to a friend. “I speak by experience; mine appears to me always young, always fair; because, notwithstanding she has had so many children, she still preserves the flower of her age, and

the beauty of her face; she is always good to me, and such a one as Simonides desired to have bom of Apicula: therefore, I may here fitly quote these verses of Theognis:

Of all good things, sure, a good wife’s the best:
Thou, Cyrnus, shalt the truth of this attest.”

This, which he wrote in 1626, would not have satisfied the desire of a Roman poet. Puteanus’s wife appeared still young and handsome to her husband, because she was so still: the business is to appear so, when one is no more so. Martial’s wish was this:

Candida perpetuo reside, Concordia, lecto,
   Tamque pari semper sit Venus aequa jugo.

Diligat illa senem quondam: sed et ipsa marito.
   Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur anus.

Martial. Epigr. xiii, lib. iv.

Fair Concord ever on their bed attend,
And Cytherea the bless'd pair befriend.
When youth is past, and wrinkled age appears,
May neither to each other seem in years.

Art. Puteanus.

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Finis.

London.—Printed by C. Richards, St. Martin's Lane.