LETTERS 
 
 CONCERNING THE 
 
 ENGLISH NATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 MR. DE VOLTAIRE, 
 
 THE FOURTH EDITION, CORRECTED. 
 
 GLASGOW^. 
 PJnted by ROBERT U R i E, M D C C L I X.
 
 THE 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 OF the Quakers. Page 3 
 
 LETTER H. 
 Of the Quakers. lo 
 
 LETTER in. 
 Of the Quakers. 1 3 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Of the Quakers. 1 8 
 
 206707$
 
 TH;E CONTENTS. 
 
 BETTER V. 
 
 Of the church of England. . 25 
 
 L E T T E R VI<. 
 Of the Frelbyterians. . 29 ; 
 
 L E T, T E R VII. 
 
 Of the Socinians, or Arianr, ; or- Antitrinitari-- 
 ans. 32. 
 
 L: E T T E R VIIL 
 Of the Parliament, $$\ 
 
 LETT E R IX.' 
 
 Of the Government.. 4.0 . 
 
 LiE. T.T.E. R.. 5C. 
 
 Of Trade, 47 
 
 LETT E R XI,; 
 Of Inoculation. 4? 
 
 L, E T T E R XU, 
 
 Lord Bacon. 54:
 
 THE CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 Of Mr. Locke. 61 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 QfDes Cartes and Sir Ifaac Newton. 70 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 Of'dttrafiion* 7$ 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Of Sir Ifaac Newton'j Optics. 90 
 
 i 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 Of Infinites iti Geometry, and Sir Ifaac NewtonV 
 Chronology. 96 
 
 LETT E R XVIII. 
 OfTragefy. 105 
 
 L E T T E R XIX, 
 Of Comedy. j 13 
 
 LET T E R XX. 
 
 Offuch of the Nobility as cultivate the Belles 
 Lettres,, 132.
 
 THE CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Of the Earl o/Rochefter and Mr. Waller. 1 35 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 Of Mr. Pope, and feme other famous Poets. 143 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 Of the Regard that ought to be Jhewn to Men of 
 Letters. 1 50 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 Of the Royal Society and other Academies. 1 55
 
 C 3 ] 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 CONCERNING THE 
 
 ENGLISHNATION. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 OF THE Q.U A K E R S. 
 
 IW AS of opinion, that the doctrine and hi- 
 ftory of fo extraordinary a people were wor- 
 thy the attention of the curious. To ac- 
 quaint myfelf with them, I made a vifit to one of 
 the moft eminent Quakers in England, who after 
 having traded thirty years had the wifdom to pre- 
 fcribe limits to his fortune and to his defires, and 
 was fettled in a little folitude not far from Lon- 
 don. Being come into it, I perceived a fmall, but 
 regularly built houfe, vaftly near, but without the 
 leaft pomp of furniture. The Quaker, who own- 
 ed it, was a hale ruddy complexioned old man, who 
 had never been afflicted with ficknefs, becaufe he 
 had always been infenfible to paffions, and a per- 
 fect ftranger to intemperance. I never in my life 
 faw a more noble or.s more engaging afpeft than 
 his. He was drefled like thofe of his perfuafion, 
 in a plain coat, without plaits in the fides, or but- 
 tons on the pockets and fleeves; and had on a
 
 4 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 beaver, the brims of which were horizontal, like 
 thofe of our clergy. He did not uncover himfelf 
 when I appeared, and advanced towards me with- 
 out once {looping his body j but there appeared 
 more politenefs in the open, humane air of his 
 countenance, than in the cuftom of drawing one 
 leg behind the other, and taking that from the 
 head, which is made to cover it. Friend, fays he 
 to me, I perceive thou art a ffranger, but if I can 
 do any thing for thee, only tell me. Sir, fays I 
 to him, bending forwards, and advancing, as is 
 \ifual with us, one leg towards him, I flatter my- 
 felf that my juft curiofity will not give you the leafl 
 offence, and that you will do me the honour to 
 inform me of the particulars of your religion. 
 The people of thy country, replied the Quaker, 
 are too full of their bows and compliments, but 
 I never yet met with one of them who had fo 
 much curiofity as thyfelf. Come in, and let us 
 firft dine together. I ftill continued to make fome 
 very unfeafonable ceremonies, it not being eafy to 
 difengage one's felf at once from habits we have 
 been longufed to; and after taking part of a fru- 
 gal meal, which began and ended with a prayer to 
 God, I began to queftion my courteous hoft. I 
 opened with that which good Catholics have more 
 than once made to Huguenots. My dear Sir, fays 
 I, were you ever baptized ? I never was, replied 
 the Quaker, nor any of my brethren. Zouns, 
 fays I to him, you are not Chriftians then. Friend, 
 replies the old man in a foft tone of voice, fwear 
 not; we are Chriftians, and endeavour to be good 
 Chriftians, but we are not of opinion, that the 
 iprinkling water on a child's head makes him a
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 5 
 
 Chrift5an. Heavens! fays I, (hocked at his im- 
 piety, you have then forgot that Chrift was baptiz- 
 ed by St. John. Friend, replies the mild Quaker 
 once again, fwcar not. Chrift indeed was bap- 
 tized by John, but he himfelf never baptized any 
 one. We are the difciples of Chrift, not of John. 
 I pitied very much the fincerity of my worthy 
 Quaker, and was abfolutely for forcing him to get 
 himfelf cbriftened. AVere that all, replied he ve- 
 ry gravely, we would fubmit chearfully to baptifm, 
 purely in compliance with thy weaknefs, for we 
 do not condemn any perfon who ufes it ; but 
 then \ve think, that thofe who profefs a religion of 
 fo holy, fo fpiritual a nature as that of Chrift, 
 ought to abftain to the utmoft of their power from 
 the Jewim ceremonies. O unaccountable ! fays 
 I, what ! baptifm a Jcwifii ceremony ? Yes, my 
 friend, fays he, fo truly Jewiih, ;im a great many 
 Jews ufe the baptifm of John to this day. Look 
 into ancient authors, and thou wilt find that John 
 only revived this practice; and that it had been 
 n fed by the Hebrews, long before his time, rn like 
 manner as the Mahometans imitated the Iilimaelites 
 in their pilgrimages to Mecca. Jefus indeed fub- 
 mitted to the hciptifm of John, as he had fuffcred 
 himfelf to be circumcrfeJ ; but circumcihon and 
 the wa/hing with water ought to be aboiiHied by 
 the baptifm of Chrift, that baptifm of the fbirir, 
 that ablution of the foul, which is the falvation of 
 mankind. Thus the forerunner fclJ, " I indeed 
 " bapGze you with wafer unto r^entance ; but 
 " he that corneth after me, is mightier thin I, 
 44 whofc (hoes I am not worthy to bcir : be :hall 
 " bapij/.e you \vith the Holy Ohofc and with 
 A 3
 
 6 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 fire -J-." Likcwife Paul, the great apoftle of 
 the Gentiles, \vrites as follows to the Corinthians; 
 " Chrift fent me not to baptize, but to preach 
 " the gofpel $ ;" and indeed Paul never baptized 
 but two perfons with water, and that very much 
 againft his inclinations. He circumcifed hisdifciple 
 Timothy, and the other difciples likewife circumcifed 
 all who were willing to fubmit to that carnal ordi- 
 nance. But art thou circumcifed, added he ? I have 
 not the honour to be fo, fays I. Well, friend, con- 
 tinues the Quaker, thou art a Chriftian without be- 
 ing circumcifed, and I am one without being 
 baptifed. Thus did this pious roan make a 
 wrong, but very fpecious, application, of four or 
 five texts of fcripture which feemed to favour the 
 tenets of his feet ; but at the fame time forgot very 
 fincerely an hundred texts which made directly a- 
 gainft them. I had more fenfe than to conteft 
 with him, fince there is no poflibility of convinc- 
 ing an enthufiaft. A man mould never pretend 
 to inform a lover of his miftrefs's faults, no more 
 than one who is at law, of the badnefs of his 
 caufe; nor attempt to win over a fanatic by flrength 
 of reafoning. Accordingly I waved the fubjecl. 
 
 WELL, fays I to him, what fort of a commu- 
 nion have you ? We have none like that thou hint- 
 eft at among us, replied he. How ! no commu- 
 nion, fays I ? Only that fpiritual one, replied he, 
 of hearts. He then began again to throw out his 
 texts of fcripture ; and preached a moft eloquent 
 iermon againft that ordinance. He harangued in 
 a tone as though he had been infpired, to prove 
 lhat the facraments were merely of human inventi- 
 f St. Matth. iii. u. j j Cor. i. 17.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 7 
 
 on, and that the word facrament was not once 
 mentioned in the gofpel. Excufe, fays he, my ig- 
 norance, for I have not employed an hundredth 
 part of the arguments which might be Brought, to 
 prove the truth of our religion; but thefe thou thy- 
 felf mayeft perufe in the expofidon of our faith 
 written by Robert Barclay. It is one of the befl 
 pieces that ever was penned by man ; and as our 
 adverfaries confefs it to be of dangerous tendency, 
 the arguments in it muft neceflarily be very con- 
 vincing. I promifed to perufe this piece, and my 
 Quaker imagined he had already made a convert 
 of me. He afterwards gave me an account, in few 
 words, of feme fingularities which make this feet 
 the contempt of others. Confefs, fays he, that 
 it was very difficult for thee to refrain from laugh- 
 ter, when I anfwered all thy civilities without un- 
 covering my head, and at the fame time faid thee 
 and thou to thee. However, thou appeared to 
 me too w : ell read, not to know that in Chrift's 
 time no nation was fo ridiculous as to put the plu- 
 ral number for the fingular. Auguftus Caefar 
 himfelf was fpoke to in fuch phrafes as thefe, " I 
 " love thee, I befeech thee, I thank thee ;" but he 
 did not allow any perfon to call him Domine, Sir, 
 It was not till many ages after, that men would 
 have the word You, as though they were double, 
 inftead of Thou, employed in fpeaking to them ; 
 and ufurped the flattering titles of lordihip, of e- 
 minence, and of holinefs, which mere worms be- 
 ftow on other worms, by alluring them that they 
 are with a moft profound refpect, and an infamous 
 falfnood, their moft obedient, humble fervants. 
 It is to fecure ourfelves more ftrongly from fuch
 
 3 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 a fliamelefs traffic of lies and flattery, that we the 
 and thou a king with the fame freedom as \ve do 
 a beggar, and falute no perfon ; we owing no- 
 thing to mankind but charity, and to the laws re- 
 fpecl and obedience. 
 
 OUR apparel is alfo fomewhat different from 
 that of others, and this purely, that it may be a 
 perpetual warning to us not to imitate them. O- 
 thers wear the badges and marks of their feveral 
 dignities, and we ihofe of chriftian humility. We 
 fly from all aflemblies of pleafure, from diverfions 
 of every kind, and from places where gaming is 
 pracYifed; and indeed our cafe would be very de- 
 plorable, fhould we fill with fuch levities, as thofe 
 I have mentioned, the heart which ought to be 
 the habitation of God. We never fwear, not even 
 in a court of juftice, being of opinion that the 
 moft holy name of God ought not to be proftitut- 
 ed in the miferable contefts betxvixt man and man. 
 When we are obliged to appear before a magi- 
 ftrate upon other people's account, (for lawfuits 
 are unknown among the friends) we give evidence 
 to the truth by fealing it with our yea or nay; 
 and the judges believe us on our bare affirmation, 
 vhilft fo many other Chriftians forfwear them- 
 fdves on the holy gofpels. We never war or 
 fight rn any cafe; but it is not that we are afraid ; 
 for fo far from fhuddering at the thoughts of 
 death, we, on the contrary, blefs the moment 
 which unites us with the being of beings ; but the 
 rcafon of our not ufing the outward fword is, that 
 we are neither wolves, tigers, nor maftifFs, but 
 men and Chrifrians. Our Cod, who has command- 
 ed us to love our enemies, and to fuffer without
 
 TH ENGLISH NATION. 9 
 
 repining, would certainly not permit us to crofs 
 the Teas, merely becaufe murderers clothed in 
 fcarlet, and wearing caps two foot high, enlift 
 citizens by a noife made with two little flicks on an 
 afs's fkin extended. And when, after a victory is 
 gained, the whole city of London is illuminated ; 
 when the fky is in a blaze with fire-works, and a 
 noife is heard in the air, of thankfgivings, of bells, 
 of organs, and of the cannon, we groan in filence, 
 and are deeply affected with fadnefs of fpirit and 
 brokennefs of heart, for the fad havoc which is 
 the occafion of thofe public rejoicings.
 
 jo LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER II. 
 OF THE Q.UAKERS. 
 
 SUCH was the fubftance of the converfation I 
 had with this very fingular perfon ; but I was 
 greatly furprized to fee him come the Sunday fol- 
 lowing, and take me with him to the Quakers 
 meeting. There are feveral of thefe in London, 
 but that which he carried me to ftands near the fa- 
 mous pillar called the monument. The brethren 
 were already aflfembled at my entering it with my 
 guide. There might be about four hundred men 
 and three hundred women in the meeting. The 
 women hid their faces behind their fans, and the 
 men were covered with their broad-brimed hats; 
 all were feated, and the filence was univerfal. I 
 paft through them, but did not perceive fo much 
 as one lift up his eyes to look at me. This filence 
 lafted a quarter of an hour, when at laft one of 
 them rofe up, took off his hat, and after making 
 a variety of wry faces, and groaning in a moft 
 lamentable manner, he partly from his nofe, and 
 partly from his mouth, threw out a ftrange, con- 
 fufed jumble of words, (borrowed as he imagined 
 from the gofpel) which neither himfelf nor any 
 of his hearers underflood. When this diftorter 
 had ended his beautiful foliloquy, and that the 
 ftupid, but greatly edified, congregation were fe- 
 parated, 1 afked my friend how it was poffible for 
 the judicious part of their aflembly to fufTer fuch 
 a babbling. We are obliged, fays he, to fufier
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. n 
 
 it, becaufe no one knows when a man rifes up to 
 hold forth, whether he will be moved by the fpi- 
 rit or by folly. In this doubt and uncertainty we 
 liften patiemly to every one, we even allow our 
 women to hold forth ; two or three of thefe are 
 often infpired at one and the fame time, and it is 
 then that a moft charming noife is heard in the 
 Lord's houfe. You have then no priefts, fays I 
 to him ? No, no, friend, replies the Quaker, to 
 our great happinefs. Then opening one of the 
 friend's books, as he called it, he read the follow- 
 ing words in an emphatic tone : God forbid we 
 fhould prefume to ordain any one to receive the 
 holy fpirit on the Lord's day, to the prejudice of 
 the reft of the brethren. Thanks to the Almighty, 
 we are the only people upon earth that have no 
 priefts. Wouldeft thou deprive us of fo happy a 
 diftinftion ? Why mould we abandon our babe 
 to mercenary nurfes, when we ourfelves have milk 
 enough for it ? Thefe mercenary creatures would 
 foon domineer in our houfes and deftroy both the 
 mother and the babe. God has faid, Freely you 
 have received, freely give. Shall we, after thefe 
 words, cheapen, as it were, the gofpel ; fell the 
 Holy Ghoft, and make of an aflembly of Chiifti- 
 ans a mere mop of traders ? We do not pay a fet 
 of men clothed in black, to affift our poor, to 
 bury our dead, or to preach to the brethren ; thefe 
 offices are all of too tender a nature, for us ever 
 to entruft them to others. But how is it pofTible 
 for you, fays I, with fome warmth, to know whe- 
 ther your difcourfe is really infpired by the Al- 
 mighty ? Whofoever, fays he, mall implore Chrift 
 to enlighten him, and iball publifh the gofpel truths
 
 12 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 he may feel inwardly, fuch an one may be aflur- 
 ed that he is infpired by the Lord. He then 
 poured forth a numberlefs multitude of fcripture- 
 texts, which proved, as he imagined, that there is 
 no fuch thing as ChrifHanity without an immedi- 
 ate revelation, and added thefe remarkable words: 
 When thou movefl one of thy limbs, is it moved 
 by thy own power ? Certainly not, for this limb is 
 often fenfible to involuntary motions ; confequent- 
 ly he, who created thy body, gives motion to this 
 earthly tabernacle. And are the feveral ideas of 
 which thy foul receives the impreffion formed by 
 thy felf ? Much lefs are they, fince thefe pour in 
 upon thy mind whether thou wilt or no ; confe- 
 quently thou receiveft thy ideas from him who 
 created thy foul : but as he leaves thy affections 
 at full liberty, he gives thy mind fuch ideas as thy 
 affections may deferve ; if thou liveft in God, thou 
 acteft, thou thinkeft in God. After this thou 
 needeft only but open thine eyes to that light 
 which enlightens all mankind, and it is then thou 
 wilt perceive the truth, and make others perceive 
 it. Why this, fays I, is Malebranche's doflrine 
 to a tittle. I am acquainted with thy Malebranche, 
 fays he; he had fomething of the friend in him, 
 but was not enough fo. 
 
 THESE are the moft confiderable particulars I 
 learnt concerning the doftrine of the Quakers: in 
 my next letter I fhali acquaint you with their 
 hiftory, which you will find more flngular than 
 their opinions. 

 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 13 
 
 LETTER III. 
 OF THE Q.UAKERS. 
 
 YOU 'have already heard that the Quakers date 
 from Ghrift, who according to them was the firft 
 Quaker. Religion, fay thefe, was corrupted a lit- 
 tle after his death, and remained in that ftate of 
 corruption about i 600 years. But there were 
 always a few Quakers concealed in the world, who 
 carefully preferved the facred fire, which was ex- 
 tinguished in all but them felves, till at laft this light 
 fpread itfelfin England in 1642. 
 
 IT was at the time when Great Britain was torn 
 to pieces by the inrefrine wars, which three or 
 four fects had raifed in the name of God, that one 
 George Fox, born in Leicefterfhire, and fon to a 
 filk-weaver, took it into his head to preach ; and, 
 as he pretended, with all the requiiitesofa true a- 
 poftle, that is, without being able either to read 
 or write. He was about twenty five f years of 
 age, irreproachable in his life and conduct, and a 
 holy madman. He was equipped in leather from 
 head to foot, and travelled from one village to a- 
 nother, exclaiming againft war and the clergy. 
 Had his invecYrves been levelled againft the foldicry 
 only, he would have been fafe enough ; but he 
 inveighed againft eccleflaftics. Fox was feized at 
 Derby, and being carried before a juflice of peace, 
 he did not once offer to pxiil off his leathern hat ; 
 upon which an officer p;ave him a great box on 
 B 
 
 f Fox could read at that age.
 
 I 4 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 the ear, and cried to him, do not you know you 
 are to appear uncovered before his worfhip? Fox 
 prefented his other cheek to the officer, and beg- 
 ged him to give him another box for God's fake. 
 The juftice would have had him fworn before he 
 afked him any queftions : know, friend, fays Fox 
 to him, that I never fwear. The juftice obferving 
 he tkee'd and tboud him, fent him to the houfe 
 of cor reft ion in Derby, with orders that he mould 
 be whipped there. Fox praifed the Lord all the 
 way he went to the houfe of correction, where 
 the juftice's order was executed with the utmoft 
 feverity. The men, who whipped this enthufiaft, 
 were greatly furprized to hear him befeech them to 
 give him a few more lafhes for the good of his 
 foul. There was no need of intreating thefe peo- 
 ple ; the lafhes were repeated, for which Fox 
 thanked them very cordially, and began to preach. 
 At firft, the fpeftators fell a laughing, but they 
 afterwsrds liftened to him ; jrcd as enthufiaftn is an 
 epidemical diftemper, many were perfunded, and 
 thofe who fcourged him became his firft difciples. 
 Being let at liberty, he rsn up and down the coun- 
 try with a dozen profelytes at his heels, ftiil de- 
 claiming again ft the clergy, and was whipped from 
 time to time. Being one day fet in the pillory, 
 he harangued the croud in fo ftrong and moving a 
 manner, that fifty of the auditors became his con- 
 verts, and he won the reft fo much in his favour, 
 that his head being freed tumuhuoufly from the 
 hole where it was fallened, the populace went and 
 fearched for the church of England clergyman, 
 who had been chiefly inftrumental in bringing him
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. ig 
 
 to this punimment, and fet him on the fame pil- 
 lory where Fox had flood. 
 
 Fox was bold enough to convert fome of Oli- 
 ver Cromwell's foldters, who thereupon quitted the 
 fervice, and refufed to take the oaths. Oliver 
 having as great a contempt for s fe6t which would 
 not allow its members to fight, as Sextus Quintus 
 had for another feel, Dove non (i chiavava, began 
 to perfecute thefe new converts. The prifons 
 were crouded with them ; but perfecurion feldoih 
 has any other effect than to increafe the number 
 of profelytcs. Thefe came therefore from their 
 confinement more ftrongly confirmed in the prin- 
 ciples they had imbibed, and followed by their 
 goalers, whom they had brought over to- their be- 
 lief. But the circum fiances, which contributed 
 chiefly to the fpreading of this feft, were as fol- 
 low. Fox thought himfelf infpired, and confe- 
 quently was of opinion, that he muft fpeak in a 
 manner different from the reft of mankind. He 
 thereupon began to wreath his body, to fcrew up 
 his face, to hold in his breath, and to exhale it in 
 a forcible manner, infomuch that the prieftefs of 
 the Pythian god at Delphos could not have afted 
 her part to better advantage. Infpiration foon be- 
 came fo habitual to him, that he could fcarce deli- 
 ver himfelf in any other manner. This was the 
 firfr, gift he communicated to rris difciples. Thefe 
 aped very fincerely their matter's feveral grimaces, 
 and fhook in every limb the inftant the fit of in> 
 fpiration came upon them ; whence they were cal- 
 ted Quakers. The vulgar attempted to mimic 
 Ihem, they trembled, they fpake through theno1 ; ; 
 they quaked, and fancied themfelves infpired by 
 B 2
 
 16 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 the Holy Ghoft. The only thing now wanting 
 was a few miracles, and accordingly they wrought 
 fome. 
 
 Fox, this modern patriarch, fpoke thus to a 
 juftice of peace, before a large a/fembly of people. 
 Friend, take care what thou doft : God will foon 
 punifh thee for perfecuting his faints. This magi- 
 ftrate being one who befotted himfelf every day 
 with bad beer and brandy, died of an apoplexy 
 two days after, the moment he had figned a mitti- 
 mus for imprifoning fome Quakers. The fudden 
 death with which this juftke was feized, was not 
 afcribed to his intemperance, but was univerfally 
 looked upon as the effect of the holy man's pre- 
 dictions j fo that this accident made more converts 
 to Quakerism, than a thoufand- fermons. and as 
 many (haking fits could have done. Oliver, findr 
 ing them increafe daily, was defirous of bringing 
 them over to his party ; and for that purpofe at- 
 tempted to bribe them by money. However, ' 
 they were incorruptible, which made him one day 
 declare, that this religion was the only one he had 
 ever met with that had refifted the charms of gold. 
 
 THE Quakers were feveral times perfecuted un- 
 der Charles the fccond, not upon a religious ac- 
 count, but for refufing to pay the tythes, for thee- 
 ing and thott-ing the magistrates, and for refufing 
 to take the oaths enacted by the laws. 
 
 AT laft Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, 
 prefented to the king in 1675, his apology for 
 the Quakers, a work as well drawn up as the fub- 
 jeft could poifibly admit. The dedication to Charles 
 the fecond is not filled with mean, flattering 
 encomiums, but abounds with bold touches in fa-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 17 
 
 vour of truth, and with the \vifeft counfels. 
 " Thou haft tafted," fays he to the king at the 
 clofe of his epiftle dedicatory, " of profperity and 
 " adverfity ; thou knoweft what it is to be banifh- 
 " ed thy native country, to be over-ruled as well 
 " as to rule, and fit upon the throne; and being 
 *' opprefled, thou haft reafon to know how hate- 
 " ful the oppreflTor is both to God and man : if, 
 " after all thefe warnings and advertifements, thou 
 " doft not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart; 
 '* but forget him who remembered thee in thy 
 " diftrefs, and give up thyfelf to follow luft and 
 u vanity, furely great will be thy condemnation." 
 
 " AGAINST which fnare, as well as thetempta- 
 " tion of thofe, that may or do feed thee, and 
 '< prompt thee to evil, the moft excellent and pre- 
 " valent remedy \viil be, to apply thyfelf to that 
 " light of Chriir, which fhineth in thy confcience, 
 " which neither can nor will flatter thee, nor fuf- 
 " fer thee to be at eafe in thy fins; but doth an*/ 
 " will deal plainly and faithfully with thee, as 
 " thofe that are followers thereof have plainly 
 
 done Thy faithful friend and fubjecT:, Ro- 
 
 bert Barclay." 
 
 A MORE furprizing circumftance is, that this e- 
 piftle, written by a private man of no figure, was 
 fo happy in its effects as to put a ftop to the per- 
 fecution.
 
 i8 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER IV, 
 OF THE Q.UAKERS. 
 
 ABOUT this time arofe the illuflrious Wil- 
 liam Pen, who eftabliihed the power of the Qua- 
 kers in America, and would have made them ap- 
 pear venerable in the eyes of the Europeans, 
 vere it poffible for mankind to refpecl virtue, 
 when revealed in a ridiculous light. He was the 
 only fon of vice-admiral Pen, favourite to the 
 duke of York, afterwards king James the fecond. 
 
 "\VILLIAM PEN, at twenty years of age hap- 
 pening to meet with a f Quaker in Cork, whom 
 he had known at Oxford, this man made a pro- 
 felyte of him; and William being a fprightly 
 youth, acd naturally eloquent, having a winning 
 afp(t, and a very engsging carriage, he foon gain- 
 ed over fome of his intimates. He carried mat- 
 ters fo far, that he formed, by inferable degrees, 
 a fociety of young Quakers, who met at his honfe ; 
 fo that he uas at the head of a feet when a little 
 above twenty. 
 
 BEING returned, after his leaving Cork, to the 
 vice-admiral his father,, in (lead of falling upon his 
 knees to afk him his bJefling, he went up to him 
 with his hat on, and faid, friend, I am very glad 
 to fee thee in good health. The vice-admiral i- 
 magir.cd his fon to be crazy ; but foon finding he 
 vas turned Quaker, he employed all the methods 
 that prudence could fuggeft, to engage him to be- 
 ifl<S. | Thomas Loe.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 19 
 
 have and aft like other people. The youth made 
 no other anfwer to his father, than by exhorting 
 him to turn Quaker alfo. At kit his father con- 
 fined himfelf to this fingle requefr, viz. that he 
 fhould wait upon the king and the duke of York 
 with his hat under his arm, and fliould not thee 
 and thou them. William anf\vered, that he could 
 not do thefe things for confcience fake ; which 
 exafperated his father to fuch a degree, that he 
 turned him out of doors. Young Pen gave God 
 thanks, for permitting him to fufier fo early in- 
 his caufe ; after which he went into the city, 
 \vhere he held forth , and made a great number 
 of converts. 
 
 THE church of England clergy found their con- 
 gregations dwindle away daily ; and Pen being 
 young, handfom, and of a graceful ftature, the 
 court, as well as the city ladies, flocked very de- 
 voutly to his meeting. The patriarch George 
 Fox hearing of his great reputation, came to Lon- 
 don (though the journey was very long) purely 
 to fee and converfe with him. Both refolved to 
 go upon millions into foreign countries, and ac- 
 cordingly they embarked for Holland, after hav- 
 ing left labourers fufficient to take care of the 
 London vineyard. 
 
 THEIR labours were crowned with fuccefs in 
 Amfterdam ; but a circumftance, which reflect- 
 ed the greateft honour on them, and at the fame 
 time put their humility to the greateft trial, was 
 the reception they met with from Elizabeth the 
 princefs Palatine, aunt to George the firft of Great 
 Britain, a lady confpicuous for her genius and 
 
 About i658, and the i-tth year of bis age.
 
 ao LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 knowlege, and to whom Des Cartes had dedicat- 
 ed his Philofophical Romance. 
 
 SHE was then retired to the Hngue, where (he 
 received thefe friends, for fo the Quakers were at 
 that time called in Holland. This princefs had 
 feveral conferences with them in her palace, and 
 fhe at laft entertained fo favourable an opinion 
 of Quakerifm, that they confefTed fhe was not 
 far from the kingdom of heaven. The friends 
 lowed likewife the good feed in Germany, but 
 reaped very little fruit; for the mode of the 
 thee-tng and t-hou-ing was not approved of in a 
 country, where a man is perpetually obliged to 
 employ the titles of highnefs and excellency. 
 "William Pen returned foon to England, upon 
 hearing of his father's ficknefs, in order to fee him 
 before he died. The vice-admiral was reconciled 
 to his fon, and though of a different perfuafion, 
 embraced him tenderly. "William made a fruit- 
 lefs exhortation to his father not to receive the 
 facrament, but to die a Quaker; and the good 
 old man intreated his fon William to wear but- 
 tons on his fleeves, and a crape hatband in his 
 beaver ; but all to no purpofe. 
 
 WILLIAM PEN inherited very large pofleffions, 
 part of which confifted in crown-debts, due to the 
 vice-admiral for fums he had advanced for the 
 fea-fervice. No monies were at that time more 
 fecure than thofe owing from the king. Pen was 
 obliged to go more than once, and thee and thoit 
 king Charles and his minifters, in order to re- 
 cover the debt ; and at laft, inftead of fpecie, the 
 government inverted him with the right and fo- 
 vereignty of a province of America, to the fouth
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 21 
 
 of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raifed to fo 
 vereign power. Pen fet fail for his new do- 
 minions with two fliips freighted with Quakers, 
 xvho followed his fortune. The country was 
 then called Penfilvania, from "William Pen, who 
 there founded Philadelphia, now the moft flourifli- 
 ing city in that country. The firft ftep he took 
 was to enter into an alliance with his American 
 neighbours; and this is the only treaty between 
 thofe people and the chriftians that was not ratifi- 
 ed by an oath, and was never infringed. The new 
 fovereign was at the fame time the legislator of 
 Penfilvania, and enacted very wife and prudent 
 laws, none of which have ever been changed fince 
 his time. The firft is to injure no perfon upon 
 a religious account, and to confider as brethren 
 all thofe who believe in one God. 
 
 HE had no fooner fettled his government, but 
 feveral American merchants came and peopled this 
 colony. The natives of the country, inftead of* 
 flying into the woods, culdvated, by infenfible 
 degrees, -a friendship with the pesceable Quakers. 
 They loved thefe foreigners as much as they de- 
 tefted the other chriftians who had conquered and 
 laid \vafte America. In a little time, a great num- 
 ber of thefe favages (falfely fo called) charmed with 
 the mild and gentle difpofition of their neighbours, 
 came in crouds to William Pen, and befought 
 him to admit them into the number of his vafTals. 
 It was very rare and uncommon for a fovereign 
 to be thee'd and thott'd by the meaneft of his fub- 
 jecls, who never took their hats off when they 
 came into his prefence ; and as Singular for a go- 
 vernment to be without one prieft in it, and for
 
 22 
 
 a people to be without arms, either offenfive or 
 defenfive ; for a body of citizens to be absolutely 
 xuidiftinguUhed but by the public employments, 
 and for neighbours not to entertain the lead jea- 
 loufy one againft the other. 
 
 \VILLJAM PEN might glory in having brought 
 down upon earth the fo much boafted golden age, 
 which in all probability never exifted but in Pen- 
 filvania. He returned to England to fettle fome 
 affairs relating to his new dominions. After the 
 death of king Charles the fecond, king James, 
 who had loved the father, indulged the fame af- 
 fection to the fon, and no longer considered him 
 as an obfcure fectary, but as a very great man. 
 The king's politics on this occafion agreed with 
 his inclinations. He was defirous of pleafing the 
 jQuakers, by annulling the laws made againft non- 
 conformifls, in order to have an opportunity, by 
 this univerfal toleration, of eftabliihing the Romifh 
 religion. All the feftaries in England faw the 
 fnare that was laid for them, but did not give in- 
 to it ; they never failing to unite, when the Ro- 
 .mifti religion, their common enemy, is to be op- 
 pofed. But Pen did not think himfelf bound in 
 any manner to renounce his principles, merely to 
 favour protefhnts, to whom he was odious, in 
 oppofition to a king who loved him. He had e- 
 ftabliihed an univerfal toleration with regard to 
 conference in America, and would not have it 
 thought that he intended to deftroy it in Europe ; 
 for which reafon he adhered fo inviolably to king 
 James, thara report prevailed univerfilly of his be- 
 ing a Jefuit. This calumny affected him very 
 ftrongly, and he was obliged to juftify himfelf in
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 23 
 
 print. However, the unfortunate king James the 
 fecond, in whom, as in moft princes of the Stuart 
 family, grandeur and weaknefs were equally blend- 
 ed ; and who, like them, as much overdid fome 
 things as he was fhort in others, loft his king- 
 dom in a manner that is hardly to be accounted 
 for. 
 
 ALL the Englifh feAarifts accepted from "Wil 
 liam the third and his parliament, the toleration 
 and indulgence which they had refufed when of- 
 fered by king James, It was then the Quakers 
 tegan to enjoy, by virtue of the laws, the feveral 
 privileges they poflefs at this time. Pen having at 
 laft feen Quakerimi firmly efhhMied in his native 
 country, went back to Penfllvania. His own 
 people and the Americans received him with tears 
 of joy, as though he had been a father who was 
 returned to vifit his children. All the laws had 
 been religioufly obferved in his abfence, a circum- 
 flance in which no legiflator had ever been hap- 
 py but himfelf. After having refided fome years 
 in Penfilvania, he left it, but with great reluc- 
 tance, in order to return to England, there to 
 folicit fome matters in favour of the commerce of 
 Penfilvania. But he never faw it again, he dying 
 In Rufcomb in Berkfliire, anno 1718. 
 
 I AM not able to guefs what fate Quakerimi 
 may have in America, but I perceive it dwindles 
 away daily in England. In oil countries where 
 liberty of confcience is allowed, the eftabliihed re- 
 ligion will at laft fwallow up all the reft, Qua- 
 kers are difqualified from being members of par- 
 liament; nor can they-enjpy any poft or prefer-
 
 24 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ment, becaufe an oath muft always be taken on 
 tbiTe occafions, and they never fwear. They are 
 therefore reduced to the necefTity of fubfifting up- 
 on traffic. Their children, whom the induftry of 
 their parents has enriched, are defirous of enjoy- 
 icg honours, of wearing buttons and ruffles ; and 
 quite aftamed of being called Quakers, they be- 
 cdme converts to the church of England, merely 
 to be in the faihion.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 25 
 
 LETTER V. 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ENGLAND is prcnerly *t,c countrv 
 rifts. Multae funt munfioncs In (tor,. 
 (in my father's houfe are many manfions.) 
 Er^li.hman, as one to v.l oin liberty is natural, 
 may go to heaven his owrt way. 
 
 NEVERTHELESS, though every one 5s permitted 
 to ferve God in wh?tever mo 'e or jaiuion he thinks 
 proper, yet their true religion, that in whi.h - 
 man makes his fortune, is the feel of epifcdparians 
 or churchmen, called the church of i/ ,d, or 
 fimply the church, by way of emi^roce. No per- 
 fon can pofiefs in employment, either in England 
 or Irehnd, unlefs he be ranked among the faifh- 
 ful, that is, profefles himfelf a member of the 
 church of England. This reafon (which carries 
 mathematical evidence with ic) has converted fuch 
 numbers of diffentcrs of all perfuailons, that not 
 a twentieth part of the nation is out of the pale 
 of the efhblifned church. The Engli/h clergy 
 have retained a great number of the Roruifn. ce- 
 remonies, and efpecially that of receiving, with 
 a mo ft fcrupulous attention, their tithes. They 
 alfo have the pious ambition to aim at fuperiority. 
 
 MOREOVER, they infpire very religioully their 
 flock with a holy zeal againft diifenters, of all de- 
 nominations. This zeal was pretty violent under 
 the tories, in the four laft years of Queen Anne ; 
 but was productive of no greater mifchief than the 
 C
 
 26 LETTERS CONCERNI N-G 
 
 breaking the -windows of fome meeting-houfes, 
 and the demolishing of a few of them. For re- 
 ligious rage ceafed in England with the civil wars; 
 and was no more under Queen Anne, than the 
 hollow noife of a fea whofe billows (till heaved, 
 though fo long after the ftorm, when the whigs 
 and tories laid wafte their native country, in the 
 fame manner as the Guelphs and Gi'oelins formerly 
 did thehs. It was abfolutely ncceflary for both 
 parties to call in religion on this occafion ; the 
 tories declared for epiicopacy, and the whigs, as 
 fome imagined, were for abojifhing it; however, 
 after thefehad got the upper hand, they contented 
 thcmfelves-with only abriging it. 
 
 AT the time when the earl of Oxford and the 
 lord Bolingbroke ufed to drink healths to the to- 
 ries, the church of England confidered thofe no- 
 blemen as the defenders of its holy privileges. The 
 lov.er houfe of convocation (a kind of houfe 
 of commons,) compofed wholly of the clergy, was 
 in fome credit at that time: at leaft the members 
 of it had the liberty to meet, to difpute on eccle- 
 liaflical matters, to fentence impious books from 
 time to time to the flames, that is, books written a- 
 gainft themfelves. The mmiflry, which is now 
 compofed of whigs, does not fo much as allow 
 tbofe gentlemen to afTemble, fo that they are at 
 this time reduced (in the obfcurity of their refpec- 
 tivc parities) to the melancholy occupation of pray- 
 ing for the profperity of the government, whofe 
 tranquillity they would willingly difturb. With re- 
 gard to the bifhops, who are twenty fix in all, they 
 Hill have feats in the houfe of lords in fpite of the 
 whigs, becaufe - the ancient abufe of confidering
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 27 
 
 them as barons fubfifts to this day. There is a claufe 
 however in the oath which the government requires 
 from thefe gentlemen, that puts their chriftian pa- 
 tience to a very great trial, viz. that they fhall be 
 of the church of England as by law eftabliflied. 
 There are few bifhops, deans, or other dignitaries, 
 but imagine they are fo jure divlno ; it is confe- 
 quently a great mortification to them to be obliged 
 to confefs, that they owe their dignity to a pitiful 
 law enacted by a fet of profane laymen. A learn- 
 ed monk (father Courayer) writ a book lately to 
 prove the validity and fucceflion of EngHih ordina- 
 tions. This book was forbid in France ; but do 
 you believe that the Englifh miniflry were plea fed 
 \vith it ? far from it. Tnofe damned whigsdo not 
 value a ftraw, whether the epifcopal fucceilion a- 
 rnong them hath been interrupted or not, or whe- 
 ther bifhop Parker was confecratcd (as it is pretend- 
 ed) in a tavern, or a church; for thefe whigs are 
 much better pleafed that the bifhops fliould derive 
 their authority from the parliament, than from the 
 apoftles. The lord B obferved, that this no- 
 tion of divine right would only make fo many 
 tyrants in lawn-fleeves, but that the laws made fo 
 many citizens. 
 
 WITH regard to the morals of the Englifli cler- 
 gy, they are more regular than thofe of France, 
 and for this reafon : all the clergy (a very few ex- 
 cepted) are educated in the univerfities of Oxford 
 or Cambridge, far from the depravity and corrup- 
 tion which reign in the capital. They are not 
 called to dignities till very late, at a time of life, 
 when men are fenfible- of no other paffion but a- 
 varice, that is, when their ambition craves a fap- 
 G 2
 
 28 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ply. Employments are here beftowed both in the 
 church and the army, as a reward for long fer- 
 vices; and we never fee youngfters made bifhops 
 or colonels immediately upon their laying afide 
 the academical gown ; and befides, moil of the 
 clergy are married. The ftiff and aukward air 
 contracted by them at the umvcrfity r and the lit- 
 tle familiarity the men of this country have with 
 the ladies, commonly oblige a bifhop to confine 
 himfelf to, and reft contented with his own. Cler- 
 gymen fometimes take a glafs at the tavern, cufiora 
 giving them a fancYton on this occafion; and if 
 they fuddle themfelves it is in a very ferious man- 
 ner, and without giving the leafl fcandal. 
 
 THAT fable mixed kind of mortal (not to be 
 defined) w.ho is neither of the clergy nor of the 
 laity, in a word, the thing called Abbe in France, 
 is a fpecies quite unknown in England. All the 
 c ergy here are very much upon the referve, and 
 moft of them pedants. When thefe are told, that 
 in France, young fellows famous for their diflfo- 
 lutenefs, and raifed to the higheft dignities of the 
 church by female intrigues, addrefs the fair pub- 
 licly in an amorous way, amufe themfelves in 
 writing tender love-fongs, entertain their friends 
 very fplendidly every night at their own houfes, 
 and after the banquet is ended, withdraw to in- 
 voke the affiftance of the Holy Ghoft, and call 
 themfelves boldly the fucceflbrs of the apoftles, they 
 blefs God for their being proteftants. But, thefe 
 are fhamelefs heretics, who deferve to be blown 
 hence through the flames to old Nick, as Rabelais 
 fays; and for this reafon I do not trouble myfelf 
 about them.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 29 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 OF THE PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 THE church of England is confined almoft to 
 the kingdom whence it received its name, and to 
 Ireland ; for Pre(byterianifm is the eftablifhed re- 
 ligion in Scotland. This Prefbyterianifm is dr- 
 reclly the fame with Calvinifm, as it was eftabliih- 
 ed in France, and is now profefled at Geneva. As 
 the priefts of this fedl receive but very inconfide- 
 rable Hipends from their churches, and confequent- 
 ly cannot emulate the fplendid luxury of bimops, 
 they exclaim very naturally againfl honours which 
 they can never attain to. Figure to yourfelf the 
 haughty Diogenes, trampling under foot the pride 
 of Plato. The Scotch Prelbyterians are not very 
 unlike that proud, though tattered, reafoner. Di- 
 ogenes did not ufe Alexander half fo impertinent- 
 ly as thefe treated king Charles the fecond ; for 
 when they took up arms in his catife, in oppouYion 
 to Oliver, who had deceived them, they forced 
 that poor monarch to undergo the hearing of three 
 or four fermons every day ; would not fufFer him 
 to play, reduced him to a Hate of penitence and 
 mortification ; fo that Charles foon grew fick of 
 thefe pedants, and accordingly eloped from them 
 with as mueh joy as a youth does from fchool. 
 
 A CHURCH of England miniller appears as ano- 
 ther Cato, in prefence of a juvenile, fprightly 
 French graduate, who bawls for a whole morning 
 together in the divinhy fchools, and hums a fong 
 C 3
 
 30 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 in chorus with ladies in the evening : but this Cato 
 is a very fpark, when before a Scotch prelbyterian. 
 The latter affects a ferious gate, puts on a four, 
 look, wears a vaftly broad-brimmed hat, and a 
 long cloak over a very (hort coat ; preaches through 
 the nofe, and gives the name of the whore of Ba- 
 bylon to all churches, where the mrnifters are fo 
 fortunate as to enjoy an annual revenue of five or 
 fix thoufand pounds ; and where the people are 
 weak enough to fuffer this, and to give them the 
 titles of my lord, your lordfhip, or your emi- 
 nence. 
 
 THI;SE gentlemen, who have alfo fome church- 
 es in England, introduced there the mode of grave 
 and fevere exhortations. To them is owing the 
 fan ft ideation of Sunday in the three kingdoms. 
 People are there forbid to work or take any recrea- 
 tion on that day, in which the feverity is twice as 
 great as that of the Romiih church. No operas, 
 plays or concerts are allowed in London on Sun- 
 days; and even cards are fo exprefly forbid, that 
 none but perfons of quality, and thofe we call the 
 genteel, play on that day ; the reft of the nation 
 go either to church, to the tavern, or to fee their 
 miftrefles. 
 
 THOUGH the Epifcopal and Prefbyterian feels 
 are the tw-o prevailing ones in Great Britain, yet 
 all others are very welcome to come and fettle in 
 tt, and live very fociably together, though moil of 
 their preachers hate one another almoft as cordial- 
 ly as a Janfenift damns a Jefuit. 
 
 TAKE a view of the royal- exchange in London, 
 a place more venerable than many courts of ju- 
 ftice, where the reprefematives of all nations met
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 31 
 
 for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the 
 Mahometan and the Chriftian tranfaft together, 
 as though they all profefled the fame religion, and 
 give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. 
 There the Prefbyterian confides in the Anabaptift, 
 and the churchman depends on the Quaker's word. 
 At the breaking up of this pacific and free aflem- 
 bly, fome withdraw to the fynagogue, and others 
 to take a glafs. This man goes and is baptized 
 in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghoft: that man has his fon's forefkin 
 cut off, whilft a fet of Hebrew words (quite unin- 
 telligible to him) are mumbled over his child. 
 Others retire to their churches, and there wait for 
 the infpiration of heaven with their hats on, and 
 all are fatisfied. 
 
 IF one religion only were allowed in England, 
 the government 'would very poffibly become arbi- 
 trary ; if there were but two, the people would 
 cut one anothers throats; but as there are fuch a 
 multitude, they all live happy, and in peace.
 
 32 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 OF THE SOCINIANS, OR ARIANS, 
 OR ANTITRINITARIANS. 
 
 THERE is a little feet here compofed of clergy- 
 men, and of a few very learned perfons among 
 the laity, who, though they do not call themfelves 
 Arians or Socinians, do yet diflent entirely from 
 St. Athanafius, with regard to their notions of the 
 Trinity, and declare very frankly, that the Father 
 is greater than the Son. 
 
 Do you remember what is related of a certain 
 orthodox bifnop, who in order to convince an 
 emperor of the reality of confubfrantiation, put 
 his hand under the chin of the monarch's fon, and 
 took him by the nofe in prefence of his facred ma- 
 jefty ? The emperor was going to order his atten- 
 dants to throw the bifhop out of the window, 
 \vhen the good old man gave him this handfome 
 and convincing reafon : Since your majefty, fays 
 he, is angry \vhen your fon has not due refpect 
 fhown him, what punishment do you think will 
 God the Father inrjift on thofe who refufe his fon 
 Jefus the titles due to him .' The perfons I juft 
 now mentioned, declare that the holy biihop took 
 a very wrong flep ; that his argument was incon- 
 clufive, and that the emperor mould have anfwer- 
 ed him thus : Know that there are two ways by 
 \vhich men may be wanting in refpect to me; 
 firft, in not doing honour fuffident to my fon j
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 33 
 
 and fecondly, in paying him the fame honour as 
 to me. 
 
 BE this as it will, the principles of Arius begin 
 to revive, not only in England, but in Holland 
 and Poland. The celebrated Sir Ifaac Newton 
 honoured this opinion fo far as to countenance it. 
 This phi'ofopher thought that the Unitarians argu- 
 ed more mathematically than we do. But the moft 
 fanguine (tickler for Arianifm is the illuftrious Dr. 
 Clark. This man is rigidly virtuous, and of a 
 mild difpofition ; is more fond of his tenets, than 
 defirous of propagating them ; and abforbed fo en- 
 tirely in problems and calculations, that he is a 
 mere reafoning machine. 
 
 IT is he who wrote a book which is much e- 
 ireemed, and little underflood, on the exiftence 
 of God; and another more intelligible, but pret- 
 ty much contemned, on the truth of the ChrhTian 
 religion. 
 
 HE never engaged in fcholaftic difputes, which 
 our friend calls venerable tribes. He only pub- 
 lifhed a work containing all the testimonies of the 
 primitive ages, for and againft the Unitarians, and 
 leaves to the reader the counting of the voices, and 
 the liberty of forming a judgment. This book 
 won the doctor a great number of partizans, and 
 loft him the fee of Canterbury : but in my humble 
 opinion, he \vas out in his calculation, and had 
 better have been primate of all England, than 
 merely an Arian parfon. 
 
 You fee that opinions are fubject to revolutions 
 as well as empires. Arianifm, after having tri- 
 umphed during three centuries, and been forgot 
 twelve, rifes at laft out of its own afhes ; but it
 
 34 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 has chofe a very Improper feafon to make its ap- 
 pearance in, the prefent age being quite cloyed 
 with difpmes and feels. The members of this 
 feet are befides too few to be indulged the liberty 
 of holding public aflembfies, which however they 
 will doubtlefs be permitted to do, in cafe they 
 fpread confiderably. But people are now fo very 
 cold with refpeft to all things of this kind, that 
 there is little probability any new religion, or old 
 one that may be revived, will meet with favour. 
 Is it not whimfical enough that Luther, Calvin, 
 and Zuinglrus, whofe writings no body in this age 
 reads, fliould have founded feels which are now 
 fpread over a great part of Europe; that Maho- 
 met, though fo ignorant, fliould have given a re- 
 ligion to Afia and Africa ; and that Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton, Dr. Clark, Mr. Locke, Mr. Le Clerc, etc. 
 the greateft philofophers, as well as the ableft writ- 
 ers of their ages, mould fcarce have been able to 
 raife a little flock, which even decreafes daily ? 
 
 THIS it is to be born at a proper period of time. 
 "Were cardinal de Retz to return again into the 
 world, neither his eloquence or his intrigues 
 would draw together ten women in Paris. 
 
 WERE Oliver Cromwell, he who beheaded his 
 fovereign, and feized upon the kingly dignity, to 
 rife from the dead, he would be a wealthy city 
 trader, and no more.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 35 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 OF THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 THE members of the Englifh parliament are 
 fond of comparing themfelves to the old Romans. 
 
 NOT long fince, Mr. Shippen opened a fpeech 
 in the houfe of commons with t ,efe words, " The 
 " majefty of the people of England would be 
 " wounded." The fingularity of the exprelfion 
 occafioned a loud laugh; but this gentleman, fo far 
 from being difconcerted, repeated the fame words 
 with a refolute tone of voice, and the laugh ceaf- 
 ed. In my opinion, ' the majefty of the people 
 of England has nothing in common with that of 
 the people of Rome ; much lefs is there any affi- 
 nity between their governments. There is in 
 London a fenate, fome of the members whereof 
 are accufed, doubtlefs very unjuftly, of felling 
 their voices on certain occafions, as was done in 
 Rome ; this is the only refemblance. Befides, the 
 two nations appear to me quite oppofite in cha- 
 racter, with regard both to good and evil. The 
 Romans never knew the dreadful folly of religious 
 wars, an abomination referved for devout preach- 
 ers of patience and humility. Marius and SylLi, 
 Caefar and Pompey, Antony and Auguftus, did 
 not draw their fwordsand fet the world in a b\?ze, 
 merely to determine whether the Flamen Ihould 
 wear his fnirt over his robe, or his robe over his 
 fhirt; or whether the /acred chickens Ihould cat 
 and drink, or eat only, in order to take the au-
 
 36 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 gury. The Engliih have hanged one another by 
 law, and cut one another to pieces in pitched bat- 
 tles, for quarrels of as trifling a nature. The 
 fefts of the Epifcoparians and Prefbyterians quite 
 diftrnfted thefe very ferious heads for a time. But 
 I fancy they will hardly ever be fo filly aga^.n, they 
 fcerrnng to he grown viler at their own expence ; 
 ^and I do not per:uvr the le?it inclination in them 
 to murder one another merely about iyilogifms, as 
 fome zealots among them ona Hid. 
 
 BUT here follows a mere eflential difference be- 
 tween Rome and England, which gives the advan- 
 tage entirely to the latter, viz. that the civil wars 
 of Rome ended in flavery, and thofe of the Eng- 
 lifh in liberty. The Englifh are the only people 
 upon earth who have been able to prefcribe limits 
 to the power of kings by refitting them ; and who, 
 by a feries of ftruggles, have at laft eftablifhed that 
 wife government, where the prince is all-powerful 
 to do good, and at the fame time is retrained from 
 committing evil ; where the nobles are great with- 
 out infolence, though there are no vaffals; and 
 where the people mare in the government without 
 confufion. 
 
 THE houfe of lords and that of the commons 
 divide the legiflative power under the king ; but 
 the Romans had no fuch balance.. The patricians 
 and plebeians in Rome were perpetually at vari- 
 ance, and there was no intermediate power to re- 
 concile them. The Roman fenate, who were fo 
 unjuftly, fo criminally proud, as not to fuffer the 
 plebeians to (hare with them in any thing, could 
 find no other artifice to keep the latter out of the 
 adminiftration, than by employing them in foreign
 
 \ 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 37 
 
 wars. They confidered the plebeians as wild beaQs, 
 whom it behoved them to let loofe upon their 
 neighbours, for fear they (hould devour thtir maf- 
 ters. Thus the greateft defeft in the governnnert 
 of the Romans raifed them to be conquerors. > l y 
 being unhappy at home, they triumphe;! cv r, 
 and pofiefTed themfclves of the world, till at lafl 
 their divifions funk them to (lavery. 
 
 THE government of England will never rife to 
 fo exalted a pitch of glory, nor will its end be fo 
 fatal. The Englifn. are not fired v.ith the i--'ci>did 
 folly of making conquefts, but would only pre- 
 vent their neighbours from conquering. They are 
 not only jealous of their own liberty, but even of 
 that of other nations. The Engii.h were ex a fp era ti- 
 ed againfl Lewis the fourteenth, for no other rea- 
 fon but becaufe he was ambitious; and declared 
 war againft him merely out of levity, not from 
 any interefted motives. 
 
 THE Englifh have doubtkfs purchafed their li- 
 berties at a very high price, and waded through 
 fcas of blood to drown the idol 6f arbitrary pouer. 
 Other nations have been involved in as great ca- 
 lamities, and have flied as much blood ; but then 
 the blood they fpilt in defence of their liber lie?, 
 only enflaved them the more. 
 
 THAT which rifes to a revolution in England, 
 is no more than a fedition in other countries. A 
 city in Spain, in Barbary, or In Turkey, takes up 
 arms in defence of its privileges, when immediate- 
 ly it is ftormed by mercenary troops, it is puniH - 
 ed by executioners, and the reft of the nation k s 
 the chains they arc loaded with. The French are 
 of opinion, that the government of this illand is 
 D
 
 38 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 more tempeftuous than the fea which furrounds 
 it ; which indeed is true ; but then it is never fo 
 but when the king raifes the florm ; when he at- 
 tempts to feize the (hip of which he is only the 
 chief pilot. The civil wars of France lafted long- 
 er; were more cruel, and productive of greater 
 evils than thofe of England : but none of thefe 
 civil wars had a wife and prudent liberty for their 
 object. 
 
 IN the deteftable reigns of Charles the ninth, and 
 Henry the third, the whole affair was only whether 
 the people mould be flaves to the Guifes. "With 
 regard to the laft war of Paris, it deferves only to 
 be hooted at. Methinks I fee a croud of fchool- 
 boys rifing up in arms againft their mafter, and 
 afterwards whiped for it. Cardinal de Retz, who 
 was witty and brave, but to no purpofe; rebelli- 
 ous without a caufe; factious without de- 
 fign, and head of a defencelefs party, cabaled for 
 caballing fake, and feemed to foment the civil war 
 merely out of diverfion. The parliament did not 
 know what he intended, nor what he did not in- 
 tend. He levied troops by aft of parliament, and 
 the next moment cafhiered them. He threatened, he 
 beged pardon ; he fet a price upon cardinal Maza- 
 rine's head, and afterwards congratulated him in a 
 public manner. Our civil wsrs under Charles the 
 fixth were bloody and cruel, thofe of the league 
 execrable, and that of the t Frondeurs ridiculous. 
 
 THAT for which the French chiefly reproach the 
 
 f Frondeurs, in its proper fenfe Slingers, and figuratively 
 Ca-villers, or lovers of contradiction ; was a name given to a 
 league or party that oppofld the French rriniftry, i. e. cardinal 
 Mazarine hi 1(548. See Rochefccault's Memoirs-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 39 
 
 Englifh nation, is, the murder of king Charles the 
 firft, whom his fubjefts treated exactly as he would 
 have treated them, had his reign been profperous. 
 After all, confider on one fide, Charles the firfl 
 defeated in a pitched battle, imprifoned, tried, fen- 
 tenced to die in Weftminlter-hall, and then behead- 
 ed: and on the other, the emperor Henry the 
 feventh, poifoned by his chaplain at his receiving 
 the facrament ; Henry the third (tabbed by a monk ; 
 thirty afTaflinations projected againft Henry the 
 fourth; feveral of them put in execution, and the 
 laft bereaving that great monarch of his life. Weigh, 
 I fay, all thefe wicked attempts, and then judge.
 
 4 o LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 THAT mixture In the EngK-li government, 
 that harmony between king, lords and commons, 
 did not always fubfift. England was enflaved for 
 a long feries of years by the Romans, the Saxons, 
 the Danes, and the French fucceflively. William 
 the conqueror particularly ruled them with a rod 
 of iron. He difpofed as abfolutely of the lives and 
 fortunes of his conquered fubjecls as an eaftern 
 monarch ; and forbid, upon pain of death, the 
 Englifh both fire or candle in their houfes after 
 eight o'clock : whether he did this to prevent 
 their nocturnal meetings, or only to try, by this 
 odd and whimfical prohibition, how far it was pof- 
 fible for one man to extend his power over his 
 fellow creatures. It is true indeed that the Engliui 
 had parliaments before and after William the con- 
 queror ; and they boaft of them, as though thefe 
 afTemblies then called parliaments, compofed of ec- 
 clefiaflical tyrants, and of plunderers entitled Ba- 
 rons, had been the guardians of the public liberty 
 and happinefs. 
 
 THE Barbarians who came from the fhores of 
 the Baltic, and fettled in the reft of Europe, 
 brought with them the form of government called 
 ftates or parliaments, about which fo much noife 
 is made, and which are fo little underftood. Kings 
 indeed were not abfolute in thofe days, but then 
 the people were more wretched upon that very ac-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 41 
 
 count, and more completely enflaved. The chiefs 
 of thefe favages, who had laid wafte France, Italy, 
 Spain, and England, made themfelves monarchs. 
 Their generals divided among themfelves the feveral 
 countries they had conquered, whence fprung thofe 
 margraves, thofe peers, thofe barons, thofe petty 
 tyrants, who often contefted with their fovereigns 
 for the fpoils of whole nations. Thefe were birds 
 of prey, fighting with an eagle for doves, whofe 
 blood the victorious \\"s to fuck. Every nation, 
 inftead of being governed by one mafter, was tram- 
 pled upon by an hundred tyrants. The priefts 
 foon played a part among them. Before this, it 
 had been the fate of the Gauls, the Germans, and 
 the Britons, to be always governed by their druids, 
 and the chiefs of their villages, an ancient kind of 
 barons, not fo tyrannical as their fucceffors. Thefe 
 druids pretended to be mediators between God and 
 man. They enabled laws, they fulminated their 
 excommunications, and fentenced to death. The 
 biftiops fucceeded, by infenfible degrees, to their 
 temporal authority in the Goth and Vandal go- 
 vernment. The popes fet themfelves at their head, 
 and armed with their briefs, their bulls, and re- 
 inforced by monks, they made even kings tremble; 
 depofed and aflaflinated them at pleafure, and em- 
 ployed every artifice to draw into their own purfes 
 monies from all parts of Europe. The weak Ina, 
 one of the tyrants of the Saxon heptarchy in Eng- 
 land, was the firft monarch that fubmirted, in his 
 pilgrimage to Rome, to pay St. Peter's penny (e- 
 quivalent very near to a French crown) for every 
 houfe in his dominions. The whole ilhnd foon 
 followed his example; 'England became infenfibly 
 D 3
 
 42 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 one of the pope's provinces, and the holy father 
 ufed to fend from time to time his legates thither 
 to levy exorbitant taxes. At laft king John de- 
 livered up, by a public inftrument, the kingdom 
 of England to the pope, who had excommunicat- 
 ed him; but the barons, not finding their account 
 in this refignation, dethroned the wretched king 
 John, and feated Lewis, father to St. Lewis king 
 of France in his place. However they were foon> 
 weary of their new monarch, and accordingly ob- 
 liged him to return back to France. 
 
 WHILST that the barons, the bifnops and the 
 popes, all laid wafle England, where all were for 
 ruling; the moft numerous, the mod ufeful, evert 
 the moft virtuous, and confequently the moft ve- 
 nerable part of mankind, confining of thofe who 
 itudy the laws and the fciences ; of traders, of arti- 
 ficers; in a word, of all who were not tyrants j, 
 that is, thofe who are called the people; thefe, I 
 (ay, were by them looked upon as fo many ani- 
 mals beneath the dignity of the human fpecies. 
 The commons in thofe ages were far from maring 
 vn the government, they being villains or peafants, 
 vhofe labour, \vhofe blood were the property of 
 their matters who entitled themfelves the nobility. 
 The major part of men in Europe were at that 
 time what they are to this day in feveral parts of 
 the world; they were villains or bondfmen of lords, 
 that is, a kind of cattle bought and fold with the 
 Jsnd. Many ages paft away before juftice could 
 be done to human nature ; before mankind were 
 confcious that it was abominable numbers fliould 
 fow, and but few reap: and was not France very 
 Jhappy, when the power and authority of thofe
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 43 
 
 petty robbers was abolifhed by the lawful authori- 
 ty of kings and of the people ? 
 
 HAPPILY in the violent fhocks which the divifi- 
 ons between kings and nobles gave to empires, the 
 chains of nations were more or lefs heavy. Liber- 
 ty, in England, fprung from the quarreh of ty- 
 rants. The barons forced king John and king 
 Henry the third, to grant the famous Magna Ghar- 
 ta, the chief defign of which was indeed to make 
 kings dependent on the lords; but then the reft 
 of the nation were a little favoured hi it, in order 
 that they might join, on proper occafions, with 
 their pretended mafters. This great charter, which 
 is confidered as the facred origin of the Engliih. li- 
 berties, fhewsin itfelf how little liberty was known. 
 
 THE title alone proves, that the king thought 
 he had a juft right to be abfolute; and that the 
 barons, and even the clergy forced him to give up 
 the pretended right, for no other reafon but be- 
 caufe they were the moft powerful. 
 
 MAGNA CHARTA begins in this ftile, We grant, 
 of our oivn free will, the following privileges to 
 the archbijhops, bijbops, priors and barons of cur 
 kingdom, etc. 
 
 THE houfe of commons is not once mentioned 
 in the articles of this charter, a proof that it did 
 not yet exilt, or that it exifted without power. 
 Mention is therein made, by name, of the freemen 
 of England, a melancholy proof that fome were 
 not io. It appears by the thirty fecond article, 
 that thefe pretended freemen owed fervice to their 
 lords. Such a liberty as this was not many re- 
 moves from flavery. 
 
 BY article XXI, the" king ordains that his ofTz-
 
 44 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 cers fhall not henceforward feize upon, unlefs they 
 pay for them, the horfes and carts of freemen. 
 The people confidered this ordinance as a real li- 
 berty, though it was a greater tyranny. Henry 
 the feventh, that happy ufurper and great politici- 
 an, who pretended to love the barons, though he 
 in reality hated and feared them, got their lands 
 alienated. By this means the villains, afterwards 
 acquiring riches by their induftry, purchafed the 
 eftates and country-feats of the illuftrious peers, 
 who had ruined themfelves by their folly and ex- 
 travagance, and all the lands got by infenfible de- 
 grees into other hands. 
 
 THE power of the houfe of commons increafed 
 every day. The families of the ancient peers were 
 at laft extinct; and as peers only are properly 
 noble in England, there would be no fuch thing 
 in flriclnefs of law, as nobility in that ifland, had 
 not the kings created new barons from time to time, 
 and preferved the body of peers, once a terror to 
 them, to oppofe them to the commons fince be- 
 come fo formidable. 
 
 ALL thefe new peers, who compofed the higher 
 houfe, receive nothing but their titles from the 
 king, and very few of them have eftates in thofe 
 places whence they take their titles. One fnall be 
 
 duke of D , though he has not a foot of 
 
 land in Dorfetfhire; and another is earl of a vil- 
 lage, though he fcarce knows where it is fituated. 
 The peers have power, but it is only in the parlia- 
 ment houfe. 
 
 THERE is no fuch thing here, as j- haute, moy- 
 
 j- La haute jajiice, is that of a lord, who has power to fen- 
 tcnce capiully, and to judge of all caufes civil and criminal,
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 45 
 
 owe, et baffe jiiftice y that is, a power to judge in 
 all matters civil and criminal ; nor a right or pri- 
 vilege of hunting in the grounds of a citizen, who 
 at the fame time is not permitted to fire a gun in 
 his own field. 
 
 No one is exempted in this country from pay- 
 ing certain taxes, becaufe he is a nobleman or a 
 prieft. All duties and taxes are fettled by the 
 houfe of commons, whofe power is greater than 
 that of the peers, though inferior to it in dignity. 
 The fpiritual as well as temporal lords have the 
 liberty to rejeft a money bill brought in by the 
 commons ; but they are not allowed to alter any 
 thing in it, and muft either pafs or throw it out 
 without reftricYion. When the bill has pafled the 
 lords, and is figned by the king, then the whole 
 nation pays every one in proportion to his revenue 
 or eftate, not according to his title, which would be 
 abfurd. There is no fuch thing as an arbitrary 
 fubfidy or poll-tax, but a real tax on the lands, of 
 all which an eftimate was made in the reign of the 
 famous king William the third. 
 
 THE land-tax continues ftill upon the fame 
 foot, though the revenue of the lands is increafed. 
 Thus no one is tyrannized over, and every one is 
 eafy. The feet of the peafants are not bruifed 
 with wooden (hoes ; they eat white bread, are well 
 clothed, and are not afraid of increafing their flock 
 
 thofe of the crown excepted. La moyenne juftice, is empower- 
 ed to judge of aftions relating to guardianfhips and offences. 
 La bafle jujiice takes cognizance of the fees due to the lord, 
 of the havoc of beads, and of offences. The moyenne jujlict 
 is imaginary, and there is nerhaps no inftanee of its ever be- 
 ng put in execution.
 
 46 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 of cattle, nor of tiling their houfes, from any ap- 
 prehenfions that their taxes will be raifed the year 
 following. The annual income of the eftates of 
 a great many commoners in England, amounts to 
 two hundred thoufand livres ; and yet thefe do 
 not think it beneath them to plough the lands 
 which enrich them, and on which they enjoy their 
 liberty.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 47 
 
 LETTER X. 
 OF TRADE. 
 
 AS trade enriched the citizens in England, fo 
 
 O f 
 
 it contributed to their freedom, and this freedom 
 on the other fide extended their commerce, whence 
 arofe the grandeur of the fbte. Trade raifed by 
 infenfible degrees the naval power, which gives 
 the Englifli a fuperiority over the feas, and they 
 now are matters of very near two hundred mips 
 of war. Pofterity will very poffibly be furprized 
 to hear that an ifland, vvhofe only produce is a lit- 
 tle lead, tin, fuller's earth, and coarfe wool, fhould 
 become fo powerful by its commerce, as to be 
 able to fend in 1723, three fleets at the fame time 
 to three different and far diftanced parts of the 
 globe. One before Gibraltar, conquered, and 
 ftill poflefTed by the Englifh; a fecond to Porto 
 Bello, to difpoflefs the king of Spain of the trea- 
 fures of the Weft-Indies; and a third into the 
 Baltic, to prevent the northern powers from com- 
 ing to an engagement. 
 
 AT the time when Lev/is the fourteenth made 
 all Italy tremble, and that his armies, which had 
 already poflefled themfelves of Savoy and Pied- 
 mont, were upon the point of taking Turin; 
 prince Eugene was obliged to march from the 
 middle of Germany in order to fuccour Savoy. 
 Having no money, without which cities cannot be 
 either taken or defended, he addrefled himfelf to 
 feme Englifli merchants. Thefe, at an hour and
 
 4 3 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 half's warning, lent him five millions, whereby he 
 was enabled to deliver Turin, and to beat the 
 French ; after which he wrote the following (hort 
 letter to the perfons who had difburfed him the 
 abovementioned fums : " Gentlemen, I have re- 
 " ceived your money, and flatter myfelf that 1 
 <f have laid it out to your fatisfaftion." Such a 
 circurnftance as this raifes a juft pride in an Eng- 
 li(h merchant, and makes him prefume (not with- 
 out fome reafon) to compare himfelf to a Roman 
 citizen ; and indeed a peer's brother does not think 
 traffic beneath him. When the lord Townfliend 
 was minifter of ftate, a brother of his was content 
 to be a city merchant ; and at the time that the 
 earl of Oxford governed Great Britain, his young- 
 er brother was no more than a factor in Aleppo, 
 where he chofe to live, and where he died. This 
 cuftom, which begins however to be laid afide, 
 appears monftrous to Germans, vainly puffed up 
 with their extraction. Thefe think it morally im- 
 partible that the fon of an Engli(h peer fliould be 
 no more than a rich and powerful citizen ; for all 
 are princes in Germany. There have been thirty 
 highnefles of the fame name, all whofe patrimony 
 confifted only in their efcutcheons and their pride. 
 IN France the title of marquis is given gratis to 
 any one who will accept of it ; and whofoever ar- 
 rives at Paris from the midft of the moil: remote 
 provinces with money in his purfe, and a name 
 terminating in ac or tile, may urut about, and cry, 
 fuch a man as I ! A man of my rank and figure ! 
 and may look down upon a trader with fovereign 
 contempt ; whilft the trader on the other fide, by 
 thus often hearing his profeffion treated fo difdain-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 47 
 
 fully, is fool enough to blu/h at it. However, I 
 need not fay which is moft ufeful to a naiion; a 
 lord, powdered in the tip 'of the mode, who 
 knows exactly at what a clock the kir,:- rifes and 
 goes to bed ; and who gives himfelf airs of grand- 
 eur and ftate, at the fame time that he is acting 
 the flave in the anti-chamber of a prime minider ; 
 or a merchant, who enriches his country, dif- 
 patches orders from his compting-hcmfe to Surat 
 and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the felicity 
 of the world.
 
 50 LETTERSCONCERNIKG 
 
 yeurs, which thined very confiderably the feraglios 
 of Perfia and Turkey. 
 
 A TRADING nation is always watchful over its 
 own interefts, and grafps at every difcovery that 
 may be of advantage to its commerce. The Cir- 
 caffians obferved, that fcarce one perfon in a thou- 
 fand was ever attacked by a fmall-pox of a violent 
 kind. That fome indeed had this diftemper very 
 favourably three or four times, but never twice fo 
 as to prove fatal ; in a word, that no one ever had 
 it in a violent degree twice in his life. They ob- 
 ferved farther, that when the fmall-pox is of the 
 milder fort, and the puftles have only a tender, 
 delicate {kin to break through, they never leave 
 the leaft fear in the face. From thefe natural ob- 
 fervations they concluded, that in cafe an infant of 
 fix months or a year old fliould have a milder fort 
 of fmall-pox, he would not die of it, would not 
 be marked, nor be ever afBic~red with it again. 
 
 IN order therefore to preferve the life and beau- 
 ty of their children, the only thing remaining was, 
 to give them the fmail-pox in their infant years. 
 This they did, by inoculating, in the body of a 
 child, a puftle taken from the mofl regular, and 
 at the fame time the mod favourable fort of fmall- 
 pox that could be procured. 
 
 THE experiment could not poffibly fail. The 
 Turks, who are people of good fenfe, foon adop- 
 ted this cuftom, infomuch that at this time there 
 is not a bafla in Conflantinople, but communicates 
 the fmall-pox to his children of both fexes, imme- 
 diately upon their being weaned. 
 
 SOME pretend, that the Circaffians borrowed this 
 cufrom anciently from the Arabians; but we fhall
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 51 
 
 leave the clearing up of this point of hiftory to 
 fome learned Benedictine, who will not fail to 
 compile a great many folios on this fubjeft, with 
 the feveral proofs or authorities. All I have to fay 
 xipon it, is, that in the beginning of the reign of 
 king George the firft, the lady Wortley Moun- 
 tague, a woman of as fine a genius, and endued 
 with as great a flrength of mind as any of her fex 
 in the Britim kingdoms, being with her hufband, 
 who was ambafTador at the Porte, made no fcruple 
 to communicate the fmall-pox to an infant of 
 which me was delivered in Conflantinople. The 
 chaplain reprefented to his lady, but to no pur- 
 pofe, that this was an unchriftian operation, and 
 therefore that it could fucceed with none but infi- 
 dels. However, it had the moft happy effect up- 
 on the fon of the lady Wortley Mountague, who, 
 at her return to England, communicated the ex- 
 periment to the princefs of Wales, now queen of 
 England. It muft be confeffed that this princefs, 
 abstracted from her crown and tides, was born to 
 encourage the whole circle of arts, and to do good 
 to mankind. She appears as an amiable philofo- 
 pher on the throne, having never let flip one op- 
 portunity of improving the great talents {he receiv- 
 ed from nature, nor of exerting her beneficence. 
 It is fhe, who being informed that a daughter of 
 Milton was living, but in miferable circumf lances, 
 immediately fent her a considerable prefent. It is 
 fhe who protects the learned father Courayer. It 
 is fiie who condefcended to attempt a reconciliati- 
 on between Dr. Clark and Mr. Leibnitz. The mo- 
 ment this princefs heard of inoculation, (lie caufed 
 an experiment of it to be made on four criminals 
 E 3
 
 52 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 fcntenced to die, and by that means preferved their 
 lives doubly; for (he not only faved them from 
 the gallows, but, by means of this artificial fmallr 
 pox, prevented their ever having that diftemper in 
 a natural way, with which they would very pro- 
 bably have been attacked one time or other, and 
 might have died of in a more advanced age. 
 
 THE princefs, being allured of the ufefulnefs of 
 this operation, caufed her own children to be in- 
 oculated. A great part of the kingdom followed 
 her example, and fince that time ten thoufand chil- 
 dren, at lead, of perfons of condition, owe in this 
 manner their lives to her majefty, and to the lady 
 Wortley Mountagne; and as many of the fair 
 fex are obliged to them for their beauty. 
 
 UPON a general calculation, threefcore perfons 
 in every hundred have the fmall-pox. Of thefa 
 threefcore, twenty die of it in the moft favourable 
 leafon of life, and as many more wear the difa- 
 greeable remains of it in their faces fo long as they 
 live.. Thus, a fifth part cf mankind either die, 
 or are disfigured by this diflemper. But it does 
 not prove fatal to fo much as one, among thofe 
 who are inoculated in Turkey or in England, un- 
 lefs the patitnt be infirm, or would have died had 
 not the experiment been made upon him. Be- 
 fides, no one is disfigured, no one has the fmall- 
 pox a fccond time, if the inoculation was perfect. 
 It is therefore certain, that had the lady of fome 
 French ambaflTador brought the fecret from Con- 
 ftantinople to Paris, the nation would have been 
 for ever obliged to her. Then the duke de Vil- 
 lequier, father to the duke d'Aumonr, v;ho en- 
 joys the moft vigorous conilitution, and is the
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 53 
 
 heahhieft man in France, would not have been cut 
 off in the flower of his age. 
 
 THE prince of Soubife, happy in the fineft flufli 
 of health, would not have been fnatched away at 
 five and twenty ; nor the dauphin, grand-father to 
 Lewis the fifteen have been laid in his grave in his 
 fiftieth year. Twenty thoufand perfons, whom 
 the fmall-pox fwept away at Paris in i 72 3 would 
 have been alive at this time. But are not the 
 French fond of life, and is beauty fo inconfider- 
 able an advantage as to be difregarded by the ladies ! 
 It muft be confeffed that we are an odd kind of 
 people. Perhaps our nation will imitate, ten years 
 hence, this practice of the Englifh, if the clergy and 
 the phyficians will but give them leave to do it : or 
 poflibly our countrymen may introduce inoculati- 
 on three months hence in France out of mere 
 whim, in cafe the Englifti (hould difcontinue it 
 through fkklenefs. 
 
 I AM informed that the Chinefe have prafrifed 
 inoculation thefe hundred years, a circumirance 
 that argues very much in its favour, fince they 
 are thought to be the wifeft and bed governed peo- 
 ple in the world. The Chinefe indeed do not 
 communicate this diftemper by inoculation, but 
 at the nofe, in the fame manner as we take fnuff. 
 This is a more agreeable way, but then it produces 
 the like effects, and proves, at the fame time, that 
 had inoculation be^n pracliied in France, it would 
 have faved the lives of thoufands.
 
 54 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 OF THELORD BACON. 
 
 NOT long fmce, the trite and frivolous quefti- 
 on following was debated in a very polite and 
 learned company, viz. who was the greateft man, 
 Caefer, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, etc. 
 
 SOME body anfwered, that Sir Ifaac Newton 
 excelled them all. The gentleman's affertion was 
 very juft ; for if true greatnefs confifts in having 
 received from heaven a mighty genius, and having 
 employed it to enlighten our own minds and that 
 of others ; a man like Sir Ifaac Newton, whofe e- 
 qual is hardly found in a thoufand years, is the 
 truly great man. And thofe politicians and con- 
 querors (and all ages produce fome) were general- 
 ly fo many illuftrious wicked men. That man 
 claims our refpect, who commands over the minds 
 of the reft of the world by the force of truth, not 
 thofe who enflave their fellow-creatures; he who 
 is acquainted with the univerfe, not they who de- 
 face it. 
 
 SINCE therefore you defire me to give you an 
 account of the famous perfonages which England 
 has given birth to, I mall begin with lord Bacon, 
 Mr. Locke, Sir Ifaac Newton, etc. afterwards the 
 warriors and minifters of ftate fhall come in their 
 order. 
 
 I MUST begin with the celebrated vifcount Ve- 
 rulam, known in Europe by the name of Bacon, 
 -which was that of his family. His father had been
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 55 
 
 lord-keeper, and himfelf was a great many years 
 lord chancellor under king James the firft. Ne- 
 verthelefs, amidft the intrigues of a court, and 
 the affairs of his exalted employment, which alone 
 were enough to engrofs his whole time, he yet 
 found fo much leifure for fhidy, as to make him- 
 felf a great philofopher, a good hiftorian, and an 
 elegant writer ; and a (till more furprizing circum- 
 flance is, that he lived in an age in which the art 
 of writing juftly and elegantly was little known, 
 much lefs true philofophy. Lord Bacon, as is the 
 fate of man, was more efteemed after his death 
 than in his life- time. His enemies were in the Bri- 
 ti/h court, and his admirers were foreigners. 
 
 WHEN the marquis d'Effiat attended in England 
 upon the princefs Henrietta Maria, daughter to 
 Henry the fourth, whom king Charles the firft had 
 married, that minifter went and vifited the lord Ba- 
 con, who being at that time fick in his bed, re- 
 ceived him with the curtains (hut clofe. You refera- 
 ble the angels, fays the marquis to him ; we hear 
 thofe beings fpoken of perpetually, and we believe 
 them fuperior to men, but are never allowed the 
 confolation to fee them. 
 
 You know that this great man was accufed of a 
 crime very unbecoming a philofopher, I mean bri- 
 bery and extortion. You know that he was fen- 
 tenced by the houfe of lords, to pay a fine of a- 
 bout four hundred thoufand French livres ; to lofe 
 his peerage and his dignity of chancellor. But in 
 the .prefent age, the English revere his memory to 
 fuch a degree, that they will force allow him to have 
 been guilty. In cafe you fhould afk what are my 
 thoughts on this head, I {hall anfwer you in the
 
 56 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 words which I heard the lord Bolinghroke ufe on a* 
 nother occafion. Several gentlemen were (peak- 
 ing, hi his company, of the avarice with which the 
 late duke of Marlborough had been charged, fome 
 examples whereof being given, the lord Bolingbroke 
 was appealed to, (who having been in the oppofite 
 party, might perhaps,- without the imputation of 
 indecency, have been allowed to clear up that 
 matter:) " he was fo great a man, replied hi9 
 " lordfaip, that I have forgot his vices." 
 
 I SHALL therefore confine myfelf to thofe things 
 which fo juftly gained lord Bacon the efteem of all 
 Europe. 
 
 THE moftfingular, and the beft of all his pieces> 
 is that which, at this time, is the moft ufelefs and 
 the leaft read, I mean his Novwn Scientiarum Or~ 
 ganum. This is the fcaffold with which the new 
 philofophy was raifed ; and when the edifice was* 
 built, part of it at leaft, the fcaffold was no longr 
 er of fervice. 
 
 Tn lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with- 
 nature, but then he knew, and pointed out, the fe- 
 veral paths that lead to it. He had defpifed in his 
 younger years the thing called philofophy in the 
 univerfities ; and did all that lay in his power to 
 prevent thofe focietiesof men, inftituted to improve 
 human reafon, from depraving it by their quiddi- 
 ties, their horrors of the vacuum, their fubftanti- 
 al forms, and all thofe impertinent terms, which not 
 only ignorance had rendered venerable, but which 
 had been made facred by their being ridkuloufly 
 blended with religion. 
 
 HE is the father of experimental philofophy. 
 It muit indeed be confefTed, that very furprizing.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 57 
 
 fecrets had been found out before his time. The 
 fea-compafs, printing, engraving on copper-plates, 
 cil-painting, looking-glaffes j the art ofreftoring, 
 in fome meafure, old men to their fight by fpefta- 
 cles, gun-powder, etc. had been difcovered. A 
 new world had been fought for, found, and con- 
 quered. Would not one fuppofe that thefe fublime 
 difcoveries had been made by the greateft philofo- 
 phers, and in ages much more enlightened than the 
 prefent ? But ic was far otherwife; -all thefe great 
 changes happened in the mod ftupid and barbarous 
 times. Che; nee only gave birth to moft of thofe in- 
 ventions; and it is very probable that what is call- 
 ed chance contributed very much to the difcovery 
 of. America; at leaft it has been always thought 
 that Chiiftopher Columbus undertook his voyage, 
 merely on the relation of a captain of a (hip, which 
 a ftorm had drove as far wefhvard, as the Caribbee 
 iflands. Be this as it will, men had failed round 
 the world, and could deftroy cities by an artificial 
 thunder, more dreadful than the real one: but, 
 then they were not acquainted with the circulati- 
 on of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of 
 motion, light, the number of our planets, etc. And 
 a man who maintained a thefis on Ariftotle's cate- 
 gories ; on the univerfals a parte ret, or fuch like 
 nonfenfe, was looked upon as a prodigy. 
 
 THE mofc aftoinihing, the moft ufeful inventi- 
 ons, are not thofe which refleft the greateft ho- 
 nour on the human mind. It is to a mechanical 
 inftincl, which is found in many men, and not to 
 true philofophy, that moft arts owe their origin. 
 
 THE difcovery of fire, the art of making bread, 
 of melting and preparing metals, of building houfes,
 
 58 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 and the invention of the (buttle, are infinitely 
 more beneficial to mankind than printing or the 
 fea-corapafs : and yet thefe arts were invented by 
 uncultivated, favage men. 
 
 WHAT a prodigious ufe the Greeks and Romans 
 made afterwards of mechanics ! Neverthelefs, they 
 believed that there were cryftal heavens ; that the 
 ftars were fmall lamps which fomedmes fell into 
 the fea; and one of their greateft philofophers, 
 after long refearches, found that the ftars were 
 fo many flints which had been detached from the 
 earth. 
 
 IN a word, no one, before the lord Bacon, was 
 acquainted with experimental philofophy, nor with 
 the feveral phyfical experiments which have been 
 made fince his time. Scarce one of them but is 
 hinted at in his work, and he himfelf had made fe- 
 veral. He made a kind of pneumatic engine, by 
 which he guefled the elafticity of the air. He ap- 
 proached, on all fides as it were, to the difcovery 
 of its weight, and had very near attained it ; but, 
 fome time after, Toricelli feized upon this truth. 
 In a little time experimental philofophy began to 
 be cultivated on a fudden in moft parts of Europe. 
 It was a hidden treafure which the lord Bacon had 
 fome notion of, and which all the philofophers, en- 
 couraged by his promifes, endeavoured to dig up. 
 
 BUT that which furprized me mofr, was to read 
 in his work, in exprefs terms, the new attraction, 
 the invention of which is afcribed to Sir Ifaac 
 Newton. 
 
 We muft fearch, fays lord Bacon, whether there 
 may not be a kind of magnetic power, which 
 operates between the earth and heavy bodies, be-
 
 THE* ENGLISH NATION. 59 
 
 tween the moon and the ocean, between the plan- 
 ets, etc. In another place he fays, either heavy 
 bodies rauft be carried towards the center of the 
 earth, or muft be reciprocally attracted by it; and 
 in the latter cafe it is evident, that the nearer bo- 
 dies, in their falling, draw towards the earth, the 
 ftronger they will attraft one another. We muft, 
 fays he, make an experiment, to fee whether the 
 fame clock will go fafter on the top of a moun- 
 tain or at the bottom of a mine; whether the 
 flrength of the weights decreafes on the mountain, 
 and increafes in the mine. It is probable, that 
 the earth has a true attra&ive power. 
 
 THIS fore-runner in philofophy was alfb an e- 
 legant writer, an hiftorian, and a wit. 
 
 His moral eflays are greatly efteemed, but they 
 were drawn up in the view of inftrucVmg rather 
 than of pleafing: and as they are not a fatire upon 
 mankind, like Rochefoucault's maxims, nor writ* 
 ten upon a fceptical plan, like Montagne's eflays, 
 they are not fo much read as thefe two ingeniovs 
 authors. 
 
 His hiftory of Henry the feventh was looked 
 upon as a matter-piece ; but how is it podible that 
 fome perfons can prcfume to compare fo little a 
 work with the hiftory of our illuftrious Thuanus? 
 
 SrrAapNG about the famous impoftor Perkin, 
 fon to a converted * Jew, who aflumed boldly the 
 name and title of Richard the fourth, king of Eng- 
 land, at the inftigation of the duchcfs of Burgun- 
 dy; and who difputcd the crown with Henry the 
 feventh, the lord Bacon writes as follows : 
 
 " At this time the king began again to be 
 John Oflcck. 
 
 F
 
 " haunted with fpirits, by the magic and curious 
 " arts of the lady Margaret ; \vho raifed up the ghoft 
 " of Richard duke of York, fecond fon to king Ed- 
 " ward the fourth, to walk and vex .the king."f 
 
 " After fuch time as fhe (Margaret of Burgundy) 
 " thought he (Perkin Warbeck) was perfect in his 
 " lefTon, fhe began to caft with herfelf from what 
 " coaft this blazing-ftar (hould firft appear, and 
 " at what time it muft be upon the horizon of Ire- 
 " land ; for there had the like meteor frrong in- 
 " fluence before.''^. 
 
 METHINKS our fagacious Thuanus does not 
 give into fuch fuftian, which formerly was looked 
 upon as fublime, but in this age is juftly called 
 nonfenfe. 
 
 f The liiftory of the reign of king Henry the feventh, page 
 . London, printed in 1641. Folio. 
 J Idem, p. iitj.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION, 61 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 OF MR. LOCK E. 
 
 PERHAPS no man ever had a more judicious, 
 or more methodical genius, or was a more acute 
 logician, than Mr. Locke; and yet he was not 
 deeply (killed in the mathematics. This great man 
 could never fubjecl himfelf to the tedious fatigue 
 of calculations, nor to the dry purfuit of mathe- 
 matical truths, which do not at firft prefent any 
 fenfible objects to the mind ; and no one has given 
 better proofs than he, that it is poflible for a man 
 to have a geometrical head, without the afliftance 
 of geometry. Before r *s time, feveral great phi- 
 lofophers had declared, in the mod: pofiuve terms, 
 what the foul of man is ; but as thefe abfolutely 
 knew nothing about it, they might very well be 
 allowed to differ entirely in opinion from one ano- 
 ther. 
 
 IN Greece, the infant feat of arts and of errors, 
 and where the grandeur as well as folly of the hu- 
 man mind went fuch prodigious lengths, the people 
 ufed to reafon about the foul in the very fame 
 manner as we do. 
 
 THE divine Anaxagoras, in whofc honour an. 
 altar was erected, for his having taught mankind 
 that the Sun was greater than Peloponnefus, that 
 fnow was black, and that the heavens were of 
 ftone ; affirmed that -the foul was an aerial fpirir, 
 but at the fame time immortal. Diogenes, (not 
 Jhe who was a cynical philofopher after having coin- 
 F 2
 
 62 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ed bafe money) declared that the foul was a por- 
 tion of the fubftance of God > an idea which we 
 muft confefs was very fublime. Epicurus main- 
 tained that it was compofed of parts in the fame 
 manner as rhe body. 
 
 ARISTOTLE, who has been explained a thoufand 
 ways, becaufe he is unintelligible, was of opinion, 
 according to fome of his difciples, that the under- 
 ;rr,nd;ng in all men is one and the fame fubftance. 
 
 THE divine Plato, mailer of the divine Ariftotle, 
 nnd the divine Socrates, mafter of the divine Plato, 
 ufed to fay, that the foul was corporeal and eternal. 
 No doubt but the Demon of Socrates had inftrudled 
 him in the nature of it. Some people, indeed, 
 pretend, that a man, who boafted his being attended 
 by a familiar genius, mnfl infallibly be either a 
 knave or a madman ; bu! this kind of people are 
 Seldom fatisfled with any thing but reafon. 
 
 WITH regard to the fathers of the church, fe- 
 veral in the primitive ages believed that the fouf 
 \vas human, and the angels and God corporeal. 
 Men naturally improve upon every fyflem. St. 
 Bernard, as father Mabillon confeffes, taught that 
 the foul after death does not fee God in the ce- 
 iciiial regions, but converfes with Chrift's human 
 nature only. However, he was not believed this 
 time on his bare word; the adventure of the crtr- 
 fade having a little funk the credit of his oracles. 
 Afterwards a thoufand fchoclmen arofe, fuch as 
 the irrefrapble * doftor, the fubtil doclor f, the 
 angelic doctor |, the feraphic doclor , and the 
 
 * Alexander <!e Hales. f Duns Scotus. | St. 
 
 Thomas. SP. Bonavcnture.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 63 
 
 cherubic doctor, who were all fure that they had 
 a very clear and diftinct idea of the foul, and yet 
 wrote in fuch a manner, that one would conclude 
 they were refolved no one (hould underftand a word 
 in their writings. Our Des Cartes, born to dif- 
 eover the errors of antiquity, and at the fame time 
 to fubftitute his own ; and hurried away by that 
 fyftematic fpirit which throws a cloud over the 
 minds of the greateft men, thought he had demon- 
 ftrated that the foul is the fame thing as though;- , 
 in the fame manner as matter, in his opinion, is 
 the fame as extenfion. He aflerted, that r.v-i: 
 thinks eternally, and that the foul, at its coming 
 into the body, is informed with the whole ieries of 
 nietaphyfical notions ; knowing God, infinite fpacc, 
 poiFeiFing all abftracr ideas ; in a word, completely 
 endued with the moft fublime lights, which it un- 
 bappily forgets zt its ifTuing fro:n the womb. 
 
 FATHER Malebranchc, in his fubiime illufion?, 
 not only admitted innate ideas, but did nor doubt 
 of our living wholly in God, and that God is, as 
 it were, our foul. 
 
 SUCH a multitude of reafoners having written 
 the romance of the foul, a isge at hut arete, who 
 gave, with an air of the grt.it- t modefiy, the hi- 
 ftory of it. I\Ir. Locke has difplsyed the human 
 foul, in the fame manner as on cr.cdlent anatoroift 
 explains the fprings of the human body. He every 
 where takes the light of phyiks for his gu'ui^. Kt? 
 fometimes prefum?s to fpeak a^Hrraaovcty, bur 
 then he prefumes alfo to doubt, Inftend of con- 
 cluding at once what 'we know not, he examines 
 gradually what we would know. He takes an in- 
 fant at the initant of his birth; he traces, ftcpby
 
 flep, the progrefs of his underftanding; examines 
 what thing he has in common with beafts, and 
 what he pofleffes above them. Above all he con- 
 fults himfelf; the being confcious that he himfelf 
 thinks. 
 
 I SHALL leave, fays he, to thofe who know 
 more of this matter than myfelf, the examining 
 whether the foul exifts before or after the organi- 
 zation of our bodies. But I confefs that it is my 
 lot to be animated with one of thofe heavy fouls 
 which do not think always ; and I am even fo un- 
 happy as not to conceive, that it is more neceffary 
 the foul fliould think perpetually, than that bodies 
 fhould be for ever in motion. 
 
 WITH regard to myfelf, I (hall boaft that I have 
 the honour to be as ftupid in this particular as Mr. 
 Locke. Mo one fhall ever make me believe, that 
 I think always; and I am as little inclined as he 
 could be, to fancy that fome weeks after I was 
 conceived, I was a very learned foul; knowing at 
 that time a thoufand things which I forgot at my 
 birth ; and pofTeffing when in the womb, (though 
 to no manner of purpofe,) knowlege which I loft 
 the inftant I had occafion for it ; and which I have 
 never fmce been able to recover perfectly. 
 
 MR. LOCKE after having defiroyed innate ideas; 
 after having fully renounced the vanity of believing 
 that we think always; after having laid down, from 
 the moft folid principles, that ideas enter the mind 
 through the fenfes; having examined our fimple 
 snd complex ideas; having traced the human mind 
 through its feveral operations ; having (hewed that 
 &;1 the languages in the world are imperfect, and 
 the great abufe that is made of words every mo-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 65 
 
 ment; he at laft comes tb confider the extent or 
 rather the narrow limits of human kno\vlege. It 
 was in this chapter "he prefumed to advance, but 
 very modeftly, the following words, " We {hall, 
 " perhaps, never be capable of knowing, whether 
 " a being, purely material, thinks or not." This 
 fage afTertion was, by more divines than one, 
 looked upon as a fcandalous declaration that the 
 foul is material and mortal. Some Englifhmen, 
 devout after their way, founded an alarm. The 
 fuperftitious are the fame in fociety as cowards in 
 an army ; they themfelves are feized with a panic 
 fear, and communicate it to others. It was loudly 
 exclaimed, that Mr. Locke intended to deftroy re- 
 ligion ; neverthelefs religion had nothing to do in 
 the affair, it being a queftion purely philofophical, 
 altogether independent on faith and revelation. 
 Mr. Locke's opponents needed but to examine, 
 calmly and impartially, whether the declaring that 
 matter can think, implies a contradiction; and 
 whether God is able to communicate thought to 
 matter. But divines are too apt to begin their de- 
 clarations with faying, that God is offended when 
 people differ from them in opinion ; in which they 
 too much referable the bad poets, who ufed to de- 
 clare publicly that Boileau fpake irreverently of 
 Lewis the fourteenth, becaufe he ridiculed their 
 ftupid productions. Bithop Stillingfleet got the 
 reputation of a calm and unprejudiced divine, be- 
 caufe he did not exprefsly make ufe of injurious 
 terms in his difpute with Mr. Locke. That divine 
 entered the lifts ag&ifift him, but was defeated ; 
 for he argued as a fchoolman, and Locke as a phi- 
 lofopher, who was perfectly acquainted with the
 
 66 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 flrong as well as the weak fide of the human mind, 
 and who fought with weapons whofe temper he 
 knew. If I might prefume to give ray opinion 
 on fo delicate a iubjeft after Mr. Locke, I would 
 fay, that men have long difputed on the nature 
 and the immortality of the foul. With regard to 
 its immortality, it is impoilible to give a clemon- 
 flration of it, fince its nature is flill the fubjec"r of 
 controverfy^.; which however muft be throughly 
 underitood, before a perfon can be able to deter- 
 mine whether it be immortal or not. Human 
 reafon is fo little able, merely by its own ftrength, 
 to demonflrate the immortality of the foul, that 
 it was abfolutely neceflary religion fliould reveal 
 it to us. It is of advantage to fociety in general, 
 that mankind ihould believe the foul to be immor- 
 tal ; faith commands us to this ; nothing more is 
 required, and the matter is cleared up at once. But 
 it is otherwife with refpecr to its nature; it is of 
 little importance to religion, which only requires 
 the foul to be virtuous, what fubftance it may be 
 made of. It is a clock which is given us to re- 
 gulate, but the artift has not told us of what ma- 
 terials the fpring of this clock is compofed. 
 
 I AM a body, and, I think, that is ail I know 
 of the matter. Shall I afcribe to an unknown 
 caufe, -what I can fo eafijy impute to the only fe- 
 cond caufe I am acquainted with? here all the 
 fchool philofophers interrupt me with their argu- 
 ment?, and declare that there is only extcnfion and 
 folidity in bodies, and that there they can have no- 
 thing but motion and figure. Now motion, fi- 
 gure, extenfion and folidity cannot form a thought, 
 and confequently the foul cannot be matter. All
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 67 
 
 this, fo often repeated, mighty feries of reafoning 
 amounts to no more than this; I anr abfolutely 
 ignorant what matter is; I.guefs, but imperfectly, 
 fome properties of it ; now, I abfolutely cannot 
 tell whether thefe properties may be joined to 
 thought. As I therefore know nothing, I maintain 
 pofitively that matter cannot think. In this man- 
 ner do the fchools reafon. 
 
 MR. Locke addreffed thefe gentlemen in the can- 
 did, fincere manner following. At lenft confefs 
 yourfelves to be as ignorant as L Neither your 
 imaginations nor mine are able ta comprehend In 
 what manner a body is fufceptible of ideas ; and do 
 you conceive better in what manner a fubflance, 
 of what kind foever, is fufceptible of them ? as you 
 cannot comprehend either matter or fpirit, why will 
 you prefume to afTert any thing? 
 
 THE fuperftitious man comes afterwards, and 
 declares, that all thofe mufl be burnt for the good 
 f their fouls, who fo much as fufpeft that it is 
 potfible for the body to think without any foreign 
 affiftance. But what would thefe people fay (iaould 
 they themfelves be proved irreligious? and indeed 
 what man can prefurne to aflert, without being 
 guilty at the fame time of the greateft impiety, that 
 k is impoffible for the Creator to form inatter with 
 thought and fenfation ? confider only, I beg you, 
 what a dilemma you bring ycurfelves into; you 
 who confine in this manner ;ne power of die Crea- 
 tor. Beafts have the fame organs, the fame fenfo- 
 tions, the fame perceptions as we; they have me- 
 mory, and combine certain ideas. In cafe it was 
 not in the power of God to animate matter, and 
 inform it with fenfation, the conference, would
 
 65 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 be, either that beads are mere machines, or that 
 they have a fpiritual foul. 
 
 METHINKS it is clearly evident that beads cannot 
 be mere machines, which I prove thus. God has 
 given them the very fame organs of fenfation as to 
 us : if therefore they have no fenfation, God has 
 created an ufelefs thing; now, according to your 
 own confeffion, God does nothing in vain; he 
 therefore did not create fo many organs of fenfa- 
 tion, merely for them to be uninformed with this 
 faculty ; confequently beads are not mere machines. 
 Beads, according to your adertion, cannot be an- 
 imated with a fpiritual foul ; yon will therefore, 
 in fpite ofyourfelf, be reduced to this only afler- 
 tion, viz. that God has endued the organs of beads, 
 who are mere matter, with the faculties of fenfa- 
 tion and perception, which you call in din ft in 
 them. But why may not God, if he pleafes, com- 
 municate to our more delicate organs that faculty 
 of feeling, perceiving, and thinking, which we 
 call human reafon ? to whatever fide you turn, 
 you are forced to acknowlege your own ignorance, 
 and the boundlefs power of the Creator. Exclaim 
 therefore no more againd the fage, the moded phi- 
 lofophy of Mr. Locke, which, fo far from inter- 
 fering with religion, would be of ufe to demondrate 
 the truth of it, in cafe religion wanted any fuch 
 fupport. For what philofophy can be of a more re- 
 ligious nature than that, which affirming nothing 
 but what it conceives clearly, and confcious of 
 its own weaknefs, declares that we mud always 
 have recourfe to God in our examining of the fir ft 
 principles. 
 
 BESIDES, we mvift not be apprehenfwe, that any
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. .69 
 
 philofophical opinion will ever prejudice the religion 
 of a country. Though our demonftrations clafh di- 
 rectly with our myfteries, that is nothing to the 
 purpofe, for the latter are not lefs revered upon 
 that account by our Chriftian philofophers, who 
 knoiv very well that the objects of reafon and thofe 
 of faith are of a very different nature. Philofophers 
 will never form a religious feet, the reafon of which 
 is, their writings are not calculated for the vulgar, 
 and they themfelves are free from enthufiafm. If 
 we divide mankind into twenty parts, it will be 
 found that nineteen of thefe confifts of perfons 
 employed in manual labour, who will never know 
 that fuch a man as Mr. Locke exifted. In the 
 remaining twentieth part, how few are readers! 
 and among fuch as are fo, twenty amufe them- 
 felves with romances to one who ftudies philofo- 
 phy. The thinking part of mankind are confined 
 to a very fmall number, and thefe will never dif- 
 turb the peace and tranquility of the world. 
 
 NEITHER Montagne, Locke, Bayle, Spinoza, 
 Hobbes, the lord Shaftsbury, Collins nor Toland, 
 lighted up the firebrand of difcord in their coun- 
 tries; this has generally been the work of divines, 
 who, being at firft puffed up with the ambition 
 of becoming chiefs of a feet:, foon grew very de- 
 firous of being at the head of a part}'. But what 
 do I fay ? all the works of the modern philofophers 
 put together will never make fo much ncife as even 
 the difpute which arofe among the Francifcans, 
 merely about the fafhion of their fleeves and of 
 their cowls.
 
 70 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 OF DESCARTES AND SIR 
 ISAAC NEWTON. 
 
 A FRENCHMAN, who arrives in London, will 
 find philofophy, like every thing dfe, very much 
 changed there. He had left the world a plenum, 
 and he now finds it a vacuum. At Paris the uni- 
 verfe is feen compofed of vortices of fubtile mat- 
 ter; but nothing like it is feen in London. In 
 France it is the preflure of the moon that caufes 
 the tides; but in England it is the fea that gravi- 
 tates towards the moon ; fo that when you think 
 that the moon mould make it flood with us, thofe 
 gentlemen fancy it {hould :be ebb, which, very un- 
 luckily, cannot be proved. For to be able to do 
 this, it is neceifary the moon and the tides fhould 
 have been enquired into, at the very in flan t of the 
 creation. 
 
 You will obferve farther, that the fun, which 
 in France is faid to have nothing to do in the affair, 
 comes in here for very near a quarter of its affi- 
 flance. According to your Cartefians, every thing 
 is performed by an impulfion, of which we have 
 very litrle notion ; and according to Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton, it is by an attraction, the caufe of which is as 
 much unknown to us. At Paris you imagine that 
 the earth is ihaped like a melon, or of an oblique 
 figure; at London it has an oblate one. A Car- 
 telian declares that light exifts in the air ; but a 
 Newtonian aflerts that it comes from the fun in
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 71 
 
 ilx minutes and a half. The feveral operations of 
 your chymiftry are performed by acids, alkalies, 
 and fubtile matter ; but attraction prevails even in 
 chymiftry among the Englifli. 
 
 THE very cflence of things is totally changed. 
 You neither are agreed upon the definition of the 
 foul, nor on that of matter. Des Cartes, as I ob- 
 ferved in ray laft, maintains that the foul is the 
 fame thing with thought; and Mr. Locke has gi- 
 ven a pretty good proof of the contrary. 
 
 DES CARTES aflerts farther, that extenfion a- 
 lone confu'tutes matter, but Sir Ifaac adds folidi- 
 ty to it. 
 
 How furioufly contradictory are thefe opi- 
 nions ! 
 
 A T o n^ ft rum Inter vos tan fas componcre lifes. 
 
 VIRGIL, Eclog. III. 
 
 '7/j no 't for us to end fuch great difpntes. 
 
 This famous Newton, this deftroyer of the Car- 
 tcfian fyftem, died in March Anno 1727. His 
 countrymen honoured him in his life-time, and in- 
 terred him as though he had been a king who had 
 made his people happy. 
 
 THE EnglKh read with the higheft fatisfaclion, 
 and tranflated into their tongue, the elogium of 
 Sir Ifaac Newton, which Mr. de Fontenelle fpoke 
 in the academy of fciences. Mr. de Fontenelle 
 prefides as judge over philofophers ; and the Eng- 
 lifh expected his decifron, as a folcmn declaration 
 of the fuperiority of the Englifh philofophy ovor 
 that of the French. But when it was found that 
 G
 
 72 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 this gentleman had compared Des Cartes to Sir 
 Ifaac, the whole Royal fociety in London rofe up 
 in arms. So far from acquiefcing with Mr. Fon- 
 tenelle's judgment, they criticifed his difcourfe. And 
 even feveral (who however were not the ableft phi- 
 lofophers in that body) were offended at the com- 
 parifon ; and for no other reafon but becaufe Des 
 Cartes was a Frenchman. 
 
 IT muft be confeiTed that thefe two great men 
 differed very much in conduct, in fortune, and in 
 philofophy. 
 
 NATURE had indulged Des Cartes a fhining and 
 ftrong imagination, whence he became a very fin- 
 gnlar perfon both in private life, and in his manner 
 of reafoning. This imagination could not conceal 
 it felf even in his philofophical works, which are e- 
 very where adorned with very mining, ingenious 
 metaphors and figures. Nature had almoft made 
 him a poet ; and indeed he wrote a piece of poet- 
 ry for the entertainment of Chriftina queen of 
 Sweden, which however was fupprefTed in honour 
 to his memory. 
 
 HE embraced a military Jife for fome time, and 
 afterwards becoming a complete philofopher, he did 
 not think the paflion of love derogatory to his 
 character. He had by his miurefs a daughter cal- 
 led Froncine, who died young, and was very much 
 regretted by him. Thus he experienced every paf- 
 fion incident to mankind. 
 
 HE was a long time of opinion, that it would 
 be neceflary for him to fly from the fociety of his 
 fellow creatures, and efpecially from his native coun- 
 try, in order to enjoy the happinefs of cultivating 
 his philofophical liudies in full liberty.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 73 
 
 DES CARTES was very right ; for his contem- 
 poraries were not knowing enough to improve and 
 enlighten his underftanding, and were capable of 
 little elfe rhan of giving him uneafinefs. 
 
 HE left France purely to go in fearch of truth, 
 which was then perfecutcd by the wretched philo- 
 fophy of the fchools. However, he found that rea- 
 fon was as much difguifed and depraved in the uni- 
 verfides of Holland, into which he withdrew, as 
 in his own country. For at the time that the 
 French condemned the only propofitions of his 
 philofophy which \vere true, he was perfecuted by 
 the pretended philofophers of Holland, who xin- 
 derflood him no better ; and who, having a nearer 
 view, of his glory, hated his perfon the more, fo 
 that he was obliged to leave Utrecht. DCS- Cartes 
 was injurioufiy accufed of being an atheift, the laft 
 refuge of religious fcandal: and he who had em- 
 ployed ail the fagacity and penetration of his genius, 
 in fearching for new proofs of the exiftence of a 
 God, was fufpecled to believe there was no fucb 
 being. 
 
 SUCH a perfecution from all fides muft necef- 
 Crnly fuppofe a moft exalted merit, as well as a 
 very diftinguifhed reputation : and indeed he pof- 
 fefled both. Reafon at that tkne darted a ray upon 
 the world through the gloom of the fchools, and 
 the prejudices of popular fuperflition. At laft his 
 name fpread fo univerfally, that the French were 
 defirous of bringing him back into his native coun- 
 try by rewards, and accordingly offered him an 
 annual penfion of a thoufand crowns. Upon thefe 
 hopes Des Cartes returned to France ; paid the fees 
 of his patent, which was fold at that time, but no 
 G 2
 
 74 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 penfion v/as fettled upon him. Thus difappointecT,. 
 he returned to his folitude in North Holland,- where 
 he again pursued the ftudy of philofophy, whilfl the 
 great Galileo, at fourfcore years of age, was groan- 
 ing in the prifons of the inquifition, only for hav- 
 ing demonftrated the earth's motion. 
 
 AT laft Des Cartes was fnatched from the world 
 in the flower of his age at Stockholm. His death 
 was owing to a bad regimen, and he expired in the 
 midft of fome literati who were his enemies, and 
 under the hands of a phyfickm to whom he was 
 odious. 
 
 THE progrefs of Sir Ifaac Newton's life was quite 
 different. He lived happy, and very much honour- 
 ed in his native country, to the age of fourfcore 
 and five years. 
 
 IT was his peculiar felicity, not only to be bora 
 in a country of liberty, but in an age when all 
 Icholaftic impertinencies were banilhed from the 
 world. Keafon alone was cultivated, and mankind 
 could only be his pupil, not his enemy. 
 
 ONE very fmgular difference in the lives of thefe 
 two great men is, that Sir Ifaac, during the long 
 courfe of years he enjoyed, was never lenfible to 
 any paffton, was not fubjeft to the Common frailties 
 of mankind, nor ever had any commerce with wo- 
 men ; a circumfbnce which was affured me by the 
 phyfician and furgeon who attended him in his 
 hft moments. 
 
 WE may admire Sir Ifaac Newton on this oc- 
 cafion, but then we muft not cenfure Des Cartes. 
 
 THE opinion that generally prevails in England 
 with regard to thefe new philofophers is, that the 
 latter was a dreamer, and the former a fage.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 75 
 
 VERY few people in England read Des Cartes, 
 whofe works indeed are now ufeleis. On the other 
 fide, but a fmall number perufe thofe of Sir Ifaac, 
 becaufe to do this the ftudent muft be deeply /kil- 
 led in the mathematics, otherwife thofe works will 
 be unintelligible to him. But notwithftanding this, 
 thefe great men are the fubjeft of every one's dif- 
 courfe. Sir Ifaac Newton is allowed every advan- 
 tage, whilit Des Cartes is not indulged a flngle 
 one. According to fome, it is to the former that 
 \ve owe the difcovery of a vacuum, that the air is 
 a heavy body, and the invention of telefcopes. In 
 a word, Sir Ifaac Newton is here as the Hercules 
 of fabulous ftory, to whom the ignorant afcribed 
 all the feats of ancient heroe?. 
 
 IN a critique that was made in London on Mr. 
 c!e Fontenelle's difcourfe, the writer prefumed to 
 afiTert that Des Cartes was not a great geometrician. 
 Thofe who make fuch a declaration may juftly be 
 reproached with flying in their matter's face. Des 
 Cartes extended the limits of geometry as far be- 
 yond the place where he found them, as Sir Ifaac 
 did after him. The former firft taught the me- 
 thod ofexprefTmg curves by equations. This geo- 
 metry, which, thanks to him for it, is now grown' 
 common, was fo nbftrufe in his rime, that not fo 
 much as one profeflbr would undertake to explain 
 it; and Schotten in Holland, and Format in France, 
 were the only men v.ho understood it. 
 
 HE applied this geometrical and inventive genius- 
 to dioptrics, which, when treated of by him, be- 
 came a new art. And if he was rniftaken in foms 
 things, the reafon of that is, a man who difco- 
 vers a new traft of land cannot at once kncxv all 
 G 3
 
 76 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 the properties of the foil. Thofe who come after 
 him, and make thefe lands fruitful, are at leaft o- 
 bliged to him for the difcovery. I will not deny 
 but there are innumerable errors in the reft of Des 
 Cartes' works. 
 
 GEOMETRY was a guide he himfelf had in fome 
 meafure fahioned, which would have conducted 
 him fafely through the feveral paths of natural 
 philofophy. Neverthelefs he at laft abandoned 
 this guide, and gave entirely into the humour of 
 forming hypothefes ; and then philofophy was no 
 more than an ingenious romance, fit only to a- 
 mufe the ignorant. He was mistaken ui the na- 
 ture of the foul, In the proofs of the exiftence 
 of a God, in matter, in the laws of motion, and 
 in the nature of light. He admitted innate ideas, 
 he invented new elements, he created a world; he 
 made man according to his own fancy ; and it is 
 juftly faid, that the man of Des Cartes is in fact 
 that of Des Cartes only, very different from the 
 real one. 
 
 HE pufbed his metaphyfical errors fo far, as to 
 cieclare that two. and two make four, for no other 
 reafon but becaufe God would have it fo. How- 
 ever, it will not be making him too great a comr 
 pliment if we affirm that he was valuable even in 
 his miftakes. He deceived himfelf, but then it was 
 at leaft in a methodical way. He deftroyed all the 
 abfurd chimeras with which youth had been infa.- 
 tuated for two thoufand years. He taught his 
 contemporaries how to reafon, and enabled them 
 to employ his own weapons againfl himfelf. If 
 Des Cartes did not pay in good money, he ho\v
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 77 
 
 ever did great fervice in crying down that of a bafe 
 alloy. 
 
 I INDEED believe, that very few will prefume to 
 compare his philofophy in any refpeft with that of 
 Sir Ifaac Newton. The former is an eflay, the 
 latter a matter-piece : but then the man, who firft 
 brought us to the path of truth, was perhaps as 
 great a genius as he who afterwards conduced us 
 through it. 
 
 DES CARTES gave fight to the blind. Thefe 
 faw the errors of antiquity and of the fciences. The 
 path he (truck out is fince become boundlefs. 
 Rohault's little work was during fome years a 
 complete fyftem of phyfics ; but now all the tranf- 
 actions of the feveral academies in Europe put to- 
 gether do not form fo much as the beginning of 
 a fyftem. In fathoming this abyfs no bottom has 
 been found. "We are now to examine what dif- 
 eoveries Sir Ifaac Newton has made in it.
 
 78 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 OF ATTRACTION. 
 
 THE difcoveries, which gained Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton fo univerfal a reputation, relate to the fyftem 
 of the world, to light, to geometrical infinites, and 
 laftly to chronology, with which he ufed to amufe 
 himfelf after the fatigue of his feverer ftudies. 
 
 I WILL now acquaint you (without prolixity if 
 poflible) with the few things I have been able to 
 comprehend of all thefe fublime ideas. With re- 
 gard to the fyftem of our world, difputes were a 
 long time maintained, on the caufe that turns the 
 planets, and keeps them in their orbits ; and on 
 thofe canfes which make all bodies here below de- 
 fcend towards the furface of the earth. 
 
 THE fyftem of Des Cartes, explained and im- 
 proved fince his time, feemed to give a plaufible 
 reafon for all thofe phaenomena ; and this reafon 
 feemed more juft, as it is fimple, and intelligible 
 to all capacities. But in philofophy a ftudent 
 ought to doubt of the things he fancies he under- 
 ftands too eafily, as much as of thofe he does not 
 underftand. 
 
 GRAVITY, the falling of accelerated bodies on 
 the earth, the revolution of the planets in their 
 orbits, their rotations round their axes, all this is 
 mere motion. Now motion cannot perhaps be 
 conceived any otherwife than by impulfion ; there- 
 fore all thofe bodies muft be impelled. But by 
 what are they impelled ? all fpace is full, it there-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 79 
 
 fore is filled with a very fubtile matter, fince this 
 Is imperceptible to us ; this matter goes from weft 
 to eaft, fmce all the planets are carried from weft 
 to eaft. Thus from hypothefis to hypothefis, from 
 one appearance to another, philofophers have ima- 
 gined a vaft whirlpool of fubtile matter, in which 
 the planets are carried round the fun : they alfo 
 have created another particular vortex which floats 
 m the great one, and which turns daily round the 
 planets. When all this is done, it is pretended 
 that gravity depends on this diurnal motion; for, 
 fay thefe, the velocity of the fubtile matter that 
 turns round oar little vortex muft be feventeen 
 times more rapid than that of the earth; or, in cafe 
 its velocity is feventeen times greater than that of 
 the earth, its centrifugal force muft: be vaftly greater, 
 and confequently impel all bodies towards the earth. 
 This is the caufe of gravity, according to the Car- 
 tefian fyftem. But the theorift, before he calculated 
 the centrifugal force and velocity of the fubtile mat- 
 ter, fhould firft have been certain that it exifted. 
 
 SIR Ifaac Newton feems to have deftroyed all 
 thefe great and little vortices, both that which car- 
 ries the planets round the fun, as well as the o- 
 ther which fuppofes every planet to turn on its 
 own axis. 
 
 FIRST, with regard to the pretended little vor- 
 tex of the earth, it is demonstrated that it muft 
 lofe its motion by infenfible degrees; it is demon- 
 ftrated, that if the earth fwims in a fluid, its den- 
 fity muft be equal to that of the earth ; and in cafe 
 its denfity be the fame, all the bodies we endea- 
 vour to move muft meet with an infuperablc re- 
 fiftance.
 
 8o LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 WITH regard to the great vortices, they are 
 flill more chimerical, and it is impoilible to make 
 them agree with Kepler's law, the truth of which 
 has been demonitrated. Sir Ifaac {hews, that the 
 revolution of the fluid, in which Jupiter is fuppof- 
 ed to be carried, is not the fame with regard to the 
 revolution of the fluid of the earth, as the revo- 
 lution of Jupiter with refpeft to that of the earth. 
 He proves, that as the planets make their revoluti- 
 ons in ellipfes, and confequently being at a much 
 greater diftance one from the other in their Aphe- 
 lia, and a little nearer in their Perihelia ; the earth's 
 velocity, for inftance, ought to be greater, when 
 it is nearer Venus and Mars, becaufe the fluid that 
 carries it along, being then more ptefled, ought 
 to have a greater motion; and yet it is even then 
 that the earth's motion is flower. 
 
 HE proves that there is no fuch thing as a ce- 
 leftial matter which goes from weft to cart, fmce 
 the cornets traverfe thofe fpaces, fometimes from 
 eaft to weft, and at other times from north to fouth. 
 
 IN fine, the better to refolve, if poffible, every 
 difficulty, he proves, and even by experiments, 
 that it is impoffible there fhould be a plenum ; and 
 brings back the vacuum, which Ariftotle and Des 
 Cartes had banimed from the world. 
 
 HAVING by thefe and feveral other arguments 
 destroyed the Cartefian vortices, he defpaired of e- 
 ver being able to difcover, whether there is a fecret 
 principle in nature, which, at the fame rime, is 
 the caufe of the motion of all celeftial bodies, and 
 that of gravity on the earth. But being retired in 
 1666, upon account of the plague r to a folitude 
 near Cambridge; as he was walking one day in
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 81 
 
 his garden, and faw fome fruits fall from a tree, 
 he fell into a profound meditation on that gravity, 
 the caufe of which had fo long been fought, but 
 in vain, by all the philofophers, whilfr, the vulgar 
 .think there is nothing myfterious in it. He faid 
 to himfelf, that from what height foever, in our 
 hemifphere, thofe bodies might defcend, their fall 
 would certainly be in the progreffion difcovered by 
 Galileo; and the fpaces they run through would 
 be as the fquare of the times. "Why may not this 
 power which caufes heavy bodies to defcend, and 
 is the fame without any fenfible diminution at the 
 remoteft diftance from the center of the earth, or 
 on the fummits of the higheft mountains; why, 
 faid Sir Ifaac, may not this power extend as high 
 as the moon ? and in cafe its influence reaches fo 
 far, is it not very probable that this power retains 
 it in its orbit, and determines its motion ? but in 
 cafe the moon obeys this principle, whatever it be, 
 may we not conclude very naturally, that the reft 
 of the planets are equally fubjecT: to it ? in cafe 
 this power exifls, which befides is proved, it muft 
 increafe in an inverfe ratio of the fquares of the 
 diftances. All therefore that remains is, to exa- 
 mine how far a heavy body, which fliould fall up- 
 on the earth from a moderate height, would go; 
 and how far in the fame time, a body which fliould 
 fall from the orbit of the moon, would defcend. 
 To find this nothing is wanted but the meafure of 
 the earth, and the diftance of the moon from it. 
 THUS Sir Ifaac Newton reafoned. But at that 
 time the Englifh. had btit a very imperfect meafure 
 of our globe, and depended on the uncertain fup- 
 pofition of mariners, who computed a degree to
 
 Si LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 contain but fixty Engliih. miles, whereas it confifts 
 in reality of near feventy. As this falfe computa- 
 tion did not agree with the conclufions which Sir 
 Ifaac intended to draw from them, he laid afide 
 this purfuit. A half-learned philofopher, remark- 
 able only for his vanity, would have made the 
 meafure of the earth agree, any how, with his fy- 
 flem : Sir Ifaac, however, chofe rather to quit the 
 refearches he- was then engaged in. But after Mr. 
 Picart had meafured the earth exactly, by tracing 
 that meridian, which redounds fo much to the 
 honour of the French, Sir Ifaac Newton refumed 
 his former reflexions, and found his account in 
 Mr. Picart's calculation. 
 
 A circurnftance which has always appeared 
 wonderful to me is, that fuch fubiime difcoveries 
 fliould have been made by the fole affiftance of a 
 quadrant and a little arithmetic. 
 
 THE circumference of the earth is one hundred 
 twenty three millions, two hundred forty nine 
 thoufand fix hundred feet. This, among other 
 things, is neceflary to prove the fyftem of attracti- 
 on. 
 
 THE inftant we know the earth's circumfer- 
 ence, and the diftance of the moon, we know that 
 of the moon's orbit, and the diameter of this or- 
 bit. The moon performs its revolution in that 
 orbit in twenty feven days, feven hours, forty 
 three minutes. It is demonftrated, that the moon 
 in its mean motion makes an hundred and four- 
 fcore and feven thoufand, nine hundred and fixty 
 feet (of Paris) in a minute. It is likewife demon- 
 itrated, by a known theorem, that the central force 
 which fhould make a body fall from the hight of
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 83 
 
 the moon, would make its velocity no more than 
 fifteen Paris feet in a minute of time. Now, if 
 the law by which bodies gravitate, and attract one 
 another in an inverfe ratio of the fquares of the 
 <diftances be true.; if the fame power acts, accord- 
 ing to that law, throughout all nature; it is evi- 
 dent that as the earth is-fixty femi-diameters dif- 
 tant from the moon, a heavy body mud ne- 
 ceflarily fall (on the earth) fifteen feet in the firft 
 fecond, and fifty four thoufand feet in the firft 
 minute. 
 
 Now a heavy body falls, in reality, fifteen feet 
 in the firft fecond, and goes in the firft minute 
 fifty four thoufand feet, which number is the fquare 
 of fixty multiplied by fifteen. Bodies therefore 
 gravitate in an inverfe ratio of the fquares of the 
 diftances; confequently, what caufes gravity on the 
 earth, and keeps the moon in its orbit, is one and 
 the fame power; it being demonftrated that the 
 moon gravitates on the earth, which is the center 
 of its particular motion, it is demonftrated that the 
 earth and the moon gravitate on the fun, which is 
 the center of their annual motion. 
 
 THE reft of the planets muft be fubjccl: to this 
 general law; and, if this law exifts, thefe planets muft 
 follow the laws which Kepler difcovered. All thefe 
 laws, all thefe relations are indeed obferved by the 
 planets with the utmoft exaclnefs; therefore the 
 power of attraction caufes all the planets to gra- 
 vitate towards the fun, in like manner as the moon 
 gravitates towards our globe. 
 
 FINALLY, as in all bodies, re-aclion is equal to 
 action, it is certain that the earth gravitates alfo 
 towards the moon; and that the fun gravitates to- 
 ll
 
 8 4 
 
 wards both : that every one of the fatellites of Sa- 
 turn gravitates towards the other four, and the 
 other four towards it ; all five towards Saturn,, and 
 Saturn towards all. That it is the fame with re- 
 gard to Jupiter; and that all thefe globes are at- 
 tracted by the fun, which is reciprocally attracted 
 by them. 
 
 THIS power of gravitation acts proportion ably 
 to the quantity of matter in bodies, a truth which 
 Sir Ifaac has demonftrated by experiments. This 
 new difcovery has been of ufe to (hew, that the fun 
 (the center of the planetary fyftem) attracts them 
 all in a direct ratio of their quantity of matter 
 combined with their nearnefs. From hence Sir 
 Ifaac, rifing by degrees to difcoveries which feem- 
 ed not to be formed for the human mind, is bold 
 enough to compute the quantity of matter con- 
 tained in the fun and in every planet ; and in this 
 manner {hews, from the fimple law of mechanics, 
 that every celeftial globe ought neceflarily to be 
 where it is placed. 
 
 His bare principle of the laws of gravitation ac- 
 counts for all the apparent inequalities in the courfe 
 of the celeftial globes. The variations of the moon 
 are a neceflary confequence of thofe laws. More- 
 over the reafon is evidently feen why the nodes of 
 the moon perform their revolutions in nineteen 
 years, and thofe of the earth in about twenty fix 
 thoufand. The feveral appearances obferved in 
 the tides are alfo a very fimple effect of this attrac- 
 tion* The proximity of the moon when at the 
 full, and when it is new, and its diftance in the 
 quadratures or quarters combined with the action
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 85 
 
 of the fun, exhibit a fenfible reafon why the ocean 
 fwells and finks. 
 
 AFTER having fhewn, by his fublime theory, 
 the courfe and inequalities of the planets, he fub- 
 jefts comets to the fame law. The orbit of thefe 
 fires (unknown for fo great a feries of years,) 
 which was the terror of mankind, and the rock a- 
 gainft which philofophy fplit; placed by Ariftotle 
 below the moon, and fent back by Des Cartes a- 
 bove the fphere of Saturn, is at lad placed in its 
 proper feat by Sir Ifaac Newton. 
 
 HE proves that comets are folid bodies which 
 move in the fphere of the fun's activity ; and that 
 they defcribe an ellipfis fo very eccentric, and fo 
 near to parabolas, that certain comets mud take 
 up above five hundred years in their revolution. 
 
 THE learned Dr. Halley is of opinion, that the 
 comet feen in 1680, is the fame which appeared 
 in Julius Caefar's time. ,Triis mews more than any 
 other, that comets are hard, opake bodies; for it 
 defcended fo near to the fun, as to come within a 
 fixth part of the diameter of this planet from it ; 
 and confequently might have contracted a degree 
 of heat two thoufand times ftronger than that of 
 red hot iron ; and would have been foon difperfed 
 in vapour, had it not been a firm, denfe body. 
 The guefling the Courfe of comets began then 
 to be very much in vogue; the celebrated Ber- 
 noulli concluded by his fyftem, that the famous 
 comet of 1680, would appear again the tjth of 
 May 1719. Not a fingle aftronomer in Europe 
 went to bed that night ; however they needed not 
 to have broke their reft, for the famous comet never 
 appeared. There is at leaft more cunning, if not 
 H 2
 
 86 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 more certainty, in fixing its return to fo remote a 
 diftance as five hundred and feventy five years. 
 As to Mr. Whifton, he affirmed very ferioufly, 
 that in the time of the deluge a eomet overflowed 
 the terreftrial globe; and he was fo unreafonable 
 as to wonder that people laughed at him for mak- 
 ing fuch an arTertion, The ancients were almoft 
 in the fame way of thinking with Mr. "Whifton, 
 and fancied that comets were always the forerun- 
 ners of fome great calamity which was to befal 
 mankind. Sir Ifaac Newton, on the contrary, fuf- 
 pected that they are very beneficent; and that va- 
 pours exhale from them merely to nourim. and 
 vivify the planets, which imbibe in their courfe the 
 feveral* particles the fun has detached from the co- 
 mets : an opinion which at leaf! is more probable 
 than the former. But this is not all. If this power 
 of gravitation or attraction acts on all the celeftial 
 globes, it acts undoubtedly on the feveral parts of 
 thefe globes. For in cafe bodies attract one ano- 
 ther in proportion to the quantity of matter con- 
 tained in them, it can only be in proportion to the 
 quantity of their parts ; and if this power is found 
 in the whole, it is undoubtedly in the half, in 
 the quarter, in the eighth part, and fo one in in- 
 finiturn. 
 
 THIS is attraction, the great fpring by which 
 all nature is moved. Sir Ifaac Newton, after hav- 
 ing demonfirated the exigence of this principle, 
 plainly forefaw that its very name would offend ; 
 and therefore this philofopher in more places than 
 one of his books, gives the reader fome caution a- 
 bout it. He bids him beware of confounding this 
 name with what the ancients called occult qualities;
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 8; 
 
 but to be fatisfied with knowing that there is in all 
 bodies a central force which acts to the utmofl li- 
 mits of the univerfe, according to the invariable 
 laws of mechanics. 
 
 IT is furprifing, after the folemn protections 
 Sir Ifaac made, that fuch eminent men as Mr. So- 
 rin and Mr. de Fontenelle, fhould have imputed 
 to this great philofopher the verbal and chimerical 
 way of reafoning of the Ariftoteliansj Mr. Sorin 
 in the memoirs of the academy of 1709, and Mr. 
 de Fontenelle in the very elogium of Sir Ifaac 
 Newton. 
 
 MOST of the French, the learned and others, 
 have repeated this reproach. Thefe are for ever 
 .crying out, Why did he not employ the word im- 
 pulflon, which is fo well underftood, rather than 
 that of attraction, which is unintelligible? 
 
 SIR Ifaac might have anfwered thefe critics thus : 
 Firft, you have as imperfect: an idea of the word 
 impulfion as of that of attraction ; and in cafe 
 you cannot conceive how one body tends towards 
 the center of another body, neither can you con- 
 ceive by what power one body can impel another. 
 
 SECONDLY, I could not admit of impulfion ; 
 for to do this, I muft have known that a celert:- 
 ial matter was the agent; but fo far from know- 
 ing that there is any fuch matter, I have proved it 
 to be merely imaginary. 
 
 THIRDLY, I ufe the word attraction for no o- 
 ther reafon. but to exprefs a defect which I dif- 
 covered in nature; a certain and mdifputable ef- 
 fect of an unknown principle ; a quality inherent 
 in matter, the caufe of which perfons of greater
 
 88 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 abilities than I can pretend to, may, If they can, 
 find out. 
 
 WHAT have you then taught us ? will thefe 
 people fay further : and to what purpofe are fo 
 many calculations to tell us what you yourfelf do 
 not comprehend ? 
 
 I HAVE taught you, may Sir Ifaac rejoin, that 
 nil bodies gravitate towards one another in propor- 
 tion to their quantity of matter; that thefe cen- 
 tral forces alone keep the planets and comets in 
 their orbits, and caufe them to move in the pro- 
 portion before fet down. I demonftrate to you-, 
 that it is impoffible there mould be any other caufe 
 which keeps the planets in their orbits, than that 
 general phaenomenon of gravity. For heavy bo- 
 dies fall on the earth according to the proportion 
 demonftrated of central forces; and the planets 
 finiming their courfe according to the fame pro- 
 portions, in cafe there were another power that 
 acted upon all thefe bodies, it would either increafe 
 their velocity, or change their direction. Now 
 not one of thefe bodies ever has a fingle degree of 
 motion or velocity, or has any direction but what 
 is demonstrated to be the effeft of the central for- 
 ces ; confequently it is impollible there mould be 
 any other principle. 
 
 GIVE me leave once more to introduce Sir Ifaac 
 fpeaking : mall he not be allowed to fay, My cafe 
 and that of the ancients is very different ? Thefe 
 law, for inffonce, water afcend in pumps, and faid, 
 the water rifes becaufe it abhors a vacuum. But 
 with regard to myfelf, I am in the* cafe of a man 
 \vlio fhould have firft obferved' that water afceirds 
 in pumps, but fliould leave others to explain the
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. S? 
 
 taufe of this effect. The anatomift who firft de- 
 clared, that the mqjion of the arm is owing to 
 the contraction of the mufcles, tanght mankind an 
 indifputable truth ; but are they lefs obliged to him 
 becaufe he did not know the reafon why the rauf- 
 cles contract ? The caufe of the elafticity of the air 
 is unknown, but he who firft difcovered this fpring 
 performed a very fignal fervice to natural phifofo- 
 phy. The fpring that I difcovered was more hid- 
 den and more univerfal, and for that very reafon 
 mankind ought to thank me the more. I have 
 difcovered a new property of matter, one of the 
 fecrets of the Creator ; and have calculated and dif- 
 covered the effects of it. After this (hall people 
 quarrel with me about the name I gave h ? 
 
 VORTICES may be called an occult quality be- 
 taufe their exiftence was never proved : attraction 
 on the contrary is a real thing, becaufe its effects 
 are demonftrated, and the proportions of it are 
 calculated. The caufe of this caufe is among the 
 arcana of the Almighty. 
 
 Precedes hue, ct non amplius. 
 Hither thou fhalt go, and no farther*
 
 j>o LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S 
 OPTICS. 
 
 THE philofophers of the laft age found out a 
 new univerfe; and a circumftance which made its 
 difcovery more difficult was, that no one had fo 
 much as fufpefted its exiftence. The moft fage 
 and judicious were of opinion, that it was a fran- 
 tic rafhnefs to dare fo much as to imagine, that it 
 was poffible to guefs the laws by which the celelli- 
 al bodies move, and the manner how light acts. 
 Galileo, by his agronomical difcoveries, Kepler by 
 his calculation, Des Cartes (at leaft in his dioptrics, 
 and Sir Ifaac Newton in all his works) feverally 
 faw the rnechanifm of the fprings of the world. 
 The geometricians have fubjefted infinity to the 
 laws of calculation. The circulation of the blood 
 in animals, and of the fap in vegetables, have 
 changed the face of nature with regard to us. A 
 new kind of exiftence has been given to bodies in 
 the air-pump. By the alMance of telefcopes bo- 
 dies have been brought nearer to one another. 
 Finally, the feveral difcoveries which Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton has made on light, are equal to the boldeft 
 things which the curiofity of man could expecT, 
 after fo many philofophical novelties. 
 
 TILL Antonio de Dominis the rainbow was 
 confidered as an inexplicable miracle. This phi- 
 lofopher guefled, that it was a neceffary e/Feft of 
 the fun and rain. Des Cartes gained immortal
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 91 
 
 fame by his mathematical explication of this fo na- 
 tural a phaenomenon. He calculated the reflecti- 
 ons and refractions of light in drops of rain ; and 
 his fagacity on this occafion was at that time look- 
 ed upon as next to divine. 
 
 BUT what would he have faid had it been prov- 
 ed to him, that he was miftaken in the nature of 
 light ; that he had not the leaft reafon to maintain 
 that it is a globular body; that it is falfe to af- 
 fert, that this matter, fpreading itfelf through the 
 whole, waits only to be projected forward by the 
 fun, in order to be put in action, in like manner 
 as a long flaffacts at one end when puftied for- 
 ward by the other ; that light is certainly darted 
 by the fun ; in fine, that light is tranfmitted from 
 the fun to the earth in about feven minutes, though 
 a cannon ball, which were not to lofe any of its 
 velocity, could not go that diftance in lefs than 
 twenty five years ? How great would have been 
 his aftoniihment, had he been told, that light does 
 not reflect directly by impinging againft the folid 
 parts of bodies ; that bodies are not tranfparent 
 when they have large pores ; and that a man fhould 
 arife, who would demonftrate all thefe paradoxes, 
 and anatomize a fingle ray of light with more dex- 
 terity than the ableft artift dhTects a human body! 
 This man is come. Sir Ifaac Newton has demon- 
 ftrated to the eye, by the bare affiftance of the 
 prifm, that light is a compofition of coloured rays, 
 which, being united, form white colour. A fingle 
 ray is by him divided into feven, which all fall up- . 
 on a piece of linen, or a meet of white paper, in 
 their order one above the other, and at unequal 
 diftances. The firft is red, the fecond orange,
 
 92 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 the third yellow, the fourth green, the fifth blue, 
 the fixth indigo, the feventh a violet purple. Each 
 of thefe rays, tranfmitted afterwards by an hun- 
 dred other prifms, will never change the colour it 
 bears; in like manner as gold, when completely 
 purged from its drofs, will never change after- 
 wards in the crucible. As a fuperabundant proof 
 that each of thefe elementary rays has inherently 
 in kfelf that which forms its colour to the eye, 
 take a fmall piece of yellow wood for inftance, 
 and fet it in the ray of a red colour, this wood 
 will indantly b'e tinged red ; but fet it in the ray 
 of a green colour, it affumes a green colour, and 
 fo of all the reft. 
 
 FROM what caufe therefore do colours arife in 
 nature? It is nothing but the difpofition of bodies 
 to reflect the rays of a certain order, and to ab- 
 forb all the reft. 
 
 WHAT then is this fecret difpofition ? Sir Ifaac 
 Newton demonftrates, that it is nothing more than 
 the denfity of the fmall conftituent particles of 
 which a body is compofed. And how is this re- 
 flection performed ? It was fuppofed to arife from 
 the rebounding of the rays, in the fame manner 
 as a ball on the furface of a folid body ; but this 
 is a miflake; for Sir Ifaac taught the aftonifhed 
 philofophers, that bodies are opake for no other 
 reafon, but becaufe their pores are large ; that 
 light reflects on our eyes from the very bofom of 
 thofe pores ; that the fmaller the pores of a body 
 are, the more fuch a body is tranfparent. Thus 
 paper, which reflects the light when dry, tranfmits 
 it when oiled, becaufe the oil, by filling its pores, 
 makes them much fmaller.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 93 
 
 IT is there that examining the vaft porofity of 
 bodies, every particle having its pores, and every 
 particle of thofe particles having its own ; he mews 
 we are not certain that there is a cubic inch of fo- 
 lid matter in the univerfe, fo far are we from con- 
 ceiving what matter is. Having thus divided, as 
 it were, light into its elements, and carried the 
 fagacity of his difcoveries fo far, as to prove the 
 method of diftinguiming compound colours from 
 fuch as are primitive ; he mews, that thefe elemen- 
 tary rays feparated by the prifm are ranged in 
 their order for no other reafon but becaufe they 
 are refracted in that very order ; and it is this pro- 
 perty (unknown till he difcovered it) of breaking 
 or fplitting in this proportion ; it is this unequal 
 refraction of rays, this power of refracting the red 
 lefs than the orange colour, etc. which he calls 
 the different refrangibility. The mofr. reflexible 
 rays are the moft refrangible, and from hence he 
 evinces that the fame power is the caufe both of 
 the reflection and refraction of light. 
 
 BUT all thefe wonders are merely but the ope- 
 ning of his difcoveries. He found out the fecret 
 to fee the vibrations or fits of light, which come 
 and goinceflantly, and which either tranfmit light, 
 or reflect it according to the denfity of the parts 
 they meet with. He has prefumed to calculate? 
 the denfity of the particles of air neceflary between 
 two glaffes, the one fiat, the other convex on one 
 fide, fet one upon the other ; in order to operate 
 fuch a tranfmiffion or reflexion, or to form fuch 
 and fuch a colour. 
 
 FRJOM all thefe combinations he difcovers the
 
 94 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 proportion in which light acts on bodies, and bo 
 dies act on light. 
 
 HE faw light fo perfectly, that he has deter- 
 mined to what degree of perfection the art of in- 
 creafing it, and of afllfting our eyes by telefcopes 
 can be carried. 
 
 DES CARTES, from a noble confidence, that 
 was very excufable, confidering how ftrongly he 
 was fired at the firft difcoveries he made in an art 
 which he almoft firft found out ; Des Cartes, I 
 fay, hoped to difcover in the ftars, by the aflift:- 
 ance of telefcopes, objects as fmall as thofe we di 
 cern upon the earth. 
 
 BUT Sir Ifaac has /hewn, that dioptric telefcopes 
 cannot be brought to a greater perfection ; becaufe 
 of that refraction, and of that very refrangibility, 
 \vhich at the fame time that they bring objects near- 
 er to us, fcatter too much the elementary rays; 
 he has calculated in thefe glafies the proportion of 
 the fcattering of the red and of the blue rays; 
 and proceeding fo far as to demonflrate things 
 which were not fuppofed even to exift, he examines 
 the inequalities which arife from the fhape or fi- 
 gure of the glafs, and that which arifes from the 
 refrangibility. He finds, that the object glafs of 
 the telefcope being convex on one fide, and flat 
 on the other, in cafe that flat fide be turned to- 
 wards the object, the error which arifes from the 
 conftruction and pofition of the glafs is above five 
 thoufand times lefs than the error which arifes 
 from the refrangibility : and therefore, that the 
 fhape or figure of the glafles is not the caufe why 
 telefcopes cannot be carried to a greater perfecti- 
 on, but arifes wholly from the nature of light.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 95 
 
 FOR this reafon he invented a telefcope, which 
 difcovers objects by reflexion and not by refradti- 
 on. Telefcopes of this ne\v kind are very hard 
 to make, and their ufe is not eafy. But accord- 
 ing to the Englifli, a reflective telefcope of but 
 five feet has the fame effect as another of an hun- 
 dred feet in length.
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 OF INFINITES IN GEOMETRY, AND SIR 
 ISAAC NEWTON'S CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 THE labyrinth and abyfs of infinity is alfo a 
 new courfe Sir Ifaac Newton has gone through, and 
 \ve are obliged to him for the clue, by whofe ailifl- 
 ance we are enabled to trace its various -windings. 
 DES CARTES got the ftart of him alfo in this 
 aftonifhing invention. He advanced with mighty 
 Heps in his geometry, and was arrived at the ve- 
 ry borders of infinity, but went no farther. Dr. 
 Wallis, about the middle of the laft century, was 
 the firft who reduced a fraction by a perpetual 
 divifion to an infinite feries. 
 
 THE lord Brounker employed this feries to 
 feruare the hyperbola, 
 
 MERCATOR publifhed a demonftration of this 
 quadrature, much about which time, Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton being then twenty three years of age, had in- 
 vented a general method to perform, on all geo- 
 metrical curves, what had juft before been tried on 
 the hyperbola. 
 
 lr is to this method of fubjecYmg every where 
 infinity to algebraical calculations, that the name 
 is given of differential cakulations or of fluxions, 
 and integrial calculation. It is the art of num- 
 bering and meafuring exactly a thing whofe exig- 
 ence cannot be conceived. 
 
 AND, indeed, would you not imagine that a 
 man laughed at you, who fliould declare that there
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 97 
 
 are lines infinitely great which form an angle in- 
 finitely little ? 
 
 THAT a right line, which is a right line fo long 
 as it is finite, by changing infinitely little its di- 
 rection, becomes an infinite curve, and that a curve 
 may become infinitely lefs than another curve? 
 
 THAT there are infinite fquares, infinite cubes, 
 and infinites of infinites all greater than one ano- 
 ther, and the laft but one of which, is nothing in 
 comparifon of the la ft ? 
 
 ALL thefe things, which at firft appear to be the 
 ntmoft excefs of frenzy, are in renlity an effort of 
 the fubtilty and extent of the human mind, and 
 the art of finding truths which till then had been 
 unknown. 
 
 THIS fo bold edifice Is even founded on fimple 
 ideas. -The bufinefs is to meafure the diagonal of 
 a fquare, to give the area of a curve, to find the 
 fquare root of a number, which has none in com- 
 mon arithmetic. After all, the imagination ought 
 not to be ftartled any more at fo many orders of 
 infinites, than at the fo well known propofition', 
 viz. That curve lines may always be made to 
 pafs between a circle and a tangent ; or at that o- 
 ther, namely that matter is divillble in infinitum. 
 Thefe two truths have been demon ftrated many 
 years, and are no lefs incomprehenfible than the 
 things we have been fpeaking of. 
 
 FOR many "years the invention of this famous 
 calculation was denied Sir Ifaac Newton. In Ger- 
 many Mr. Leibnitz was confidered as the inventor 
 of the differences or moments, called f Fluxions, 
 and Mr. Bernouilli claimed the integral calculati- 
 
 I 2 
 
 f By Sir Jfaac Newton.
 
 p8 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 on. However, Sir Ifaac is now thought to have 
 firft made the difcovery, and the other two have 
 the glory of having once made the world doubt 
 whether it was to be afcribed to him or them. 
 Thus fome contefted with Dr. Harvey the inventi- 
 on of the circulation of the blood, as others dif- 
 puted with Mr. Perrault that of the circulation of 
 the fap. 
 
 HARTSOCHER and Lewenhoeck difputed with 
 each other the honour of having firft feen the ver- 
 noiculi of which mankind are formed. This Hart- 
 focher alfo contefted with Huygens the invention 
 of a new method of calculating the diftance of a 
 fixed ftar. It is not yet known to what philofo- 
 pher we owe the invention of the cycloid. Be 
 this as it will, it is by the help of this geometry of 
 infinites that Sir Ifaac Newton attained to the moft 
 fublime difcoveries. 
 
 I AM now to fpeak of another work, which, 
 though more adapted to the capacity of the human 
 mind, does neverthelefs difplay fome marks of that 
 creative genius with which Sir Ifaac Newton was 
 informed in all his refearches. The work I mean 
 is a chronology of a new kind ; for what province 
 ioever he undertook, he was fure to change the i- 
 deas and opinions received by the reft of men. 
 
 ACCUSTOMED to unravel and difintangle chaos's, 
 he was refolved to convey at leaft fome light into 
 that of the fables of antiquity, which are blend- 
 ed and confounded with hiftory, and fix an uncer- 
 tain chronology. It is true, that there is no fa* 
 mily, city or nation, but endeavours to remove 
 its original as far backward as potfible. Befldes, 
 the fii-ft hiftorians were the moft negligent in fet-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. $ 9 
 
 ting down the aeras ; books were infinitely lefs 
 common than they are at this time, and confe- 
 quently authors being not fo obnoxious to cenfure, 
 ,, they therefore impofed upon the world with great- 
 er impunity ; and as it is evident that thefe have 
 related a great number of fictitious particulars, it 
 is probable enough that they alfo gave us feveraJ 
 falfe aeras. 
 
 IT appeared in general to Sir Ifaac, that the 
 -world was five hundred years younger than chro- 
 nologers declare it to be. He grounds his opinion 
 on the ordinary courfe of nature, and on the ob- 
 fervations which aftronomers have made. 
 
 BY the courfe of nature we here underftand the 
 time that every generation of men lives upon the 
 earth. The Egyptians firft employed this vague 
 and uncertain method of calculating, when they 
 began to write the beginning of their hiftory. 
 Thefe computed three hundred and forty' one ge- 
 nerations from Menes to Serhon ; and' having no 
 fixed aera, they fuppofed three generations to corr- 
 fift of an hundred years. In this manner they 
 computed eleven thoufand three hundred and forty 
 years from Menes's reign to that of Sethon. 
 
 THE Greeks, before they counted by olympiads, 
 followed the method of the Egyptians, and even 
 gave a little more extent to generations, making 
 each to confift of forty years. 
 
 Now here both the Egyptians and the Greeks 
 made an erroneous computation. It is true in- 
 deed, that according to the ufual courfe of nature 
 three generations laft about an hundred and twenty 
 years : but three reigns are far from taking up fo 
 many. It is very evident, that mankind in gene-
 
 ioo LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ral live longer than kings are found to reign : fo 
 that an author who fhould write a hiftory, in, 
 which there were no dates fixed, and iliould know 
 that nine kings had reigned over a nation; fuch an- 
 biftorian would commit a great error fhould he al- 
 low three hundred years to thefe nine monarchs. 
 Every generation takes about thirty fix years; every 
 reign is, one with the other, about, twenty* 
 Thirty kings of England have fwayed the fceptre 
 from William the conqueror to George the firfly 
 the years of whofe reigns added together, amount 
 to fix hundred and forty eight years ; which being 
 divided equally among the thirty kings, give to 
 every one a reign of twenty one years and a half 
 very near. Sixty three kings of France have fat 
 \ipon the throne ; thefe have, one with another, 
 reigned about twenty years each. This is the 
 lifual courfe of nature: the ancients therefore were 
 miftaken, when they fuppofed the durations, m 
 general, of reigns, to equal that of generations. 
 They therefore allowed too great a number of 
 years, and confequently forne years muft be fub- 
 ft rafted from their computation. 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL obfervations-feem to, ; have lent 
 a frill greater aflifbnjee to our philofopher. He 
 appears to us ftronger when, he fights upon -his 
 own ground. 
 
 You know that the earth, befides its annual 
 motion which carries it round the fun, from weft 
 to eait, in the fpace of a year, has alfo a fingular 
 revolution, which was quite unknown till within 
 thefe late years. Its poles have a very, flow retro* 
 grade motion from eaft to well, whence it-happens 
 that their pofition every day does not correfpond
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION, ror 
 
 exa&ly with the fame point of the heavens. This- 
 difference, which is fo infenfible in a year, becomes- 
 pretty confiderable in time; and in threefcore and 
 twelve years the difference is found to be of one 
 degree ; that is to fay, the three hundred and fixtieth 
 pare of the circumference of tne whole heaven.. 
 Thus after feventy two years,, the colure of the 
 vernal equinox, which paffed through a fixed ftar, 
 correfponds with another fixed ftar. Hence it is, 
 that the fun, inftead of being in that part of the 
 heavens in which the Ram was fituated in the time 
 of Hipparchus, is found to correfpond with that 
 part of the heavens in- which the Bull was fituated; 
 and the Twins are placed where the Bull then flood. 
 All the figns have changed their fituation, and yet 
 we fttll retain the fame manner of Speaking as the 
 ancients did. In this age we fay that the fun is in- 
 the Ram in the fpring, from the fame principle of 
 condefcenfion that we fay that the fun turns round. 
 HIPPARCHUS was the firfl among the Greeks 
 who obferved fome change in the conftellations, 
 with regard to the equinoxes, or rather who learnt 
 it from the Egyptians. Philofophers afcribed this 
 motion to the ftars ; for in thofe ages people were 
 far from imagining fuch a revolution in the earth, 
 which was fuppofed to be immoveable in every re- 
 fpecl. They therefore created a heaven in which 
 they fixed the feveral ftars, and gave this heaven a 
 particular motion by which it was carried towards 
 the eaft,. whilft that all the ftars feemed to perform 
 their diurnal revolution from, eaft to weft. To 
 this error they added" a fecond of much greater 
 confequence, by imagining that the pretended hea- 
 ven of the fixed fbrs advanced one degree eaft-
 
 roz LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ward every hundred years. In this manner they 
 were no lefs miftaken in their agronomical calcu- 
 lation than in their fyftem of natural philofophy. 
 As for inftance, an afrronomer in that age would 
 have faid, that the vernal equinox was in the time 
 of fuch and fuch an obfervation, in fuch a fign, 
 and in fuch a ftar. It has advanced two degrees 
 of each fince the time that obfervation was made 
 to the prefent. Now two degrees are equivalent 
 to two hundred years; confequently the aftrono- 
 mer who made that obfervation lived juft fo many 
 years before me. It is certain that an aftronomer 
 who had argued in this manner would have mif- 
 took juft fifty four years ; hence it is that the an- 
 cients, who were doubly deceived, made their great 
 year of the world, that is, the revolution of the 
 whole heavens, to confift of thirty fix thoufand 
 years. But the moderns are fenfible, that this i- 
 maginary revolution of the heaven of the ftars is* 
 nothing elfe than the revolution of the poles of the 
 earth, which is performed in twenty five thoufand' 
 nine hundred years. It may be proper to obfervtf 
 tranfiently in this place, that Sir Ifaac, by deter- 
 mining the figure of the earth, has very happily 
 explained the caufe of this revolution. 
 
 ALL this being laid down, the only thing re- 
 maining to fettle chronology, is, to fee through 
 what ftar the colure of the equinoxes paries, and 
 where it interfecls at this time the ecliptic in the 
 fpring; and to difcover whether fome ancient writer 
 does not tell us in what point the ecliptic was 
 interfered in his time by the fame colure of the 
 equinoxes. 
 
 CLEMEN? ALEXANDRIKUS informs us, that Chi-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 103 
 
 ron, who went with the Argonauts, obferved the 
 confiellations at the time of that famous expediti- 
 on, and fixed the vernal equinox to the middle of 
 the Ram ; the autumnal equinox to the middle of 
 Libra; our fummer folftice to the middle of Can- 
 cer, and our winter folftice, to the middle of Cap- 
 ricorn. 
 
 A LONG time after the expedition of the Argo- 
 nauts, and a year before the Peloponnefian war, 
 Methon obferved that the point of the fummer fol- 
 ftice pa/Ted through the eighth degree of Cancer. 
 
 Now every fign of the zodiac contains thirty de- 
 grees. In Chiron's time, the folftice was arrived 
 at the middle of the fign, that is to fay, to the fif- 
 teenth degree. A year before the Peloponnefian 
 war, it was at the eighth, and therefore it had re- 
 tarded feven degrees. A degree is equivalent to 
 feventy two years; confequently, from the begin- 
 ning of the Peloponnefian war to the expedition 
 of the Argonauts, there is no more than an inter- 
 val of feven times feventy two years, which make 
 five hundred and four years, and not feven hun- 
 dred years, as the Greeks computed. Thus in com- 
 paring the pofition of the heavens at this time, with 
 their pofition in that age, we find that the expe- 
 dition of the Argonauts ought to be placed about 
 nine hundred years before Chrift, and not about 
 fourteen hundred ; and confequently that the world 
 is not fo old by five hundred years as it was ge- 
 nerally fuppofed to be. By this calculation all the 
 aeras are drawn nearer, and the feveral events are 
 found to have happened later than is computed. I 
 do not know whether this ingenious fyftem will be 
 favourably received ; and whether thefe notions will
 
 104 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 . x . 
 
 prevail fo far with the learned, as to prompt them 
 to reform the chronology of the world. Perhaps 
 thefe gentlemen would think it too great a con- 
 defcenfion, to allow one and the fame man the 
 glory of having improved natural philofophy, geo- 
 metry and hiftory. This would be a kind of uni- 
 verfal monarchy, which the principle of felf-love 
 that is in man will fcarce fuffer him to indulge his 
 fellow creature ; and, indeed, at the fame time that 
 fome very great philofophers attacked Sir Ifaac 
 Newton's attractive principle, others fell upon his 
 chronological fyftem. Time, that fhould dif- 
 cover to which of thefe the victory is due, may 
 perhaps only leave the difpute fiill more undeter- 
 mined,
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 105 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 OF TRAGEDY. 
 
 THE Englifh, as well as the Spaniards, were 
 pofletFed of theatres, at a time when the French 
 had no more than moving, itinerant ffoges. Shake- 
 fpeare, \vho was confidered as the Corneille of the 
 firfl mentioned nation, was pretty near contempor- 
 ary with Lopez de Vega, and he created, as it were, 
 the Engliih theatre. Shakefpeare boafted a ftrong, 
 fruitful genius : he was natural and fublime, but 
 had not fo much as a fmgle fpark of good tafte, 
 or knew one rule of the drama. 1 will now hazard 
 a random, but, at the fame time, true reflection, 
 which is, that the great merit of this dramatic poet 
 has been the ruin of the Englidi ftage. There are 
 fuch beautiful, fuch noble, fuch dreadful fcenesin 
 this writer's monnrous farces, to which the name 
 of tragedy is given, that they have always been ex- 
 hibited with great fuccefs. Time, which only gives 
 reputation to writers, at laft makes their very faults 
 venerable. Moft of the whimfical, gigantic images 
 of this poet, have, through length of time (it be- 
 ing an hundred and fifty years fmce they were firft 
 drawn) acquired a right of palling for fublime. 
 Moft of the modern dramatic writers have copied 
 him ; but the touches and defcriptions which are 
 applauded in Shakefpeare, are hifled at in thefe 
 writers; and you will eafily believe, that the ve- 
 neration in which this author is held increafes in 
 proportion to the contempt which is ftiewu to the
 
 lo6 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 moderns. Dramatic writers do not confider that 
 they fhould not imitate him ; and the ill fuccefs of 
 Shakefpeares imitators produces no other effect than 
 to make him be confidered as inimitable. You re- 
 member, that in the tragedy of OTHELLO Moor of 
 Venice, (a mod tender piece) a man flrangles his 
 wife on the ftage; and that the poor woman, whilft 
 fhe is ftrangling, cries aloud, that {he dies very un- 
 juftly. You know that in HAMLET Prince of Den- 
 mark, two grave-diggers make a grave, and are all 
 the time drinking, finging ballads, and making hu- 
 morous reflections, (natural indeed enough to per- 
 fons of their profeflion) on the feveral fkulls they 
 throw up with their fpades ; but a circumftance 
 which will furprize you is, that this ridiculous in- 
 cident has been imitated. In the reign of king 
 Charles the fecond, which was that of politenefs, 
 and the golden age of the liberal arts, Otway, in 
 his VENICE PRESERV'D, introduces Antonio thefe- 
 nator, and Naki his courtezan, in the midft of 
 the horrors of the marquis of Bedmar's confpiracy. 
 Antonio, the fuperannuated fenator plays, in his 
 miftrefs's prefence, all the apifn tricks of a lewd, 
 impotent debauchee, who is quite frantic and out 
 of his fenfes. He mimics a bull and a dog ; and 
 bites his miftrefs's legs, who kicks and whips him. 
 However, the players have {truck rhefe buffooneries 
 (which indeed was calculated merely for the dregs 
 of the people) out of Otway 's tragedy ; but they 
 have fUll left in Shakefpeare's JULIUS CJESAR, the 
 jokes of the Roman moemakers and coblers, who 
 are introduced in the fame fcene with Brutus and 
 Caffius. You will undoubtedly complain, that thofe 
 who have hitherto difcourfed with you on the Eng-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 107 
 
 lift flage, and efpecially on the celebrated Shake- 
 fpeare, have taken notice only of his errors; and 
 that no one has tranOated any of thofe ftrong, thofe 
 forcible paflages which atone for all his faults. 
 But to this I \viil anfwer, that nothing is eafier than 
 to exhibit in profe all the filly impertinencies which 
 a poet may -have thrown out ; 'but that it is a very 
 difficult taik to tranflate his fine verfes. All your 
 junior academical Sophs, who fet up for cenfors of 
 the eminent writers, compile whole volumes; but 
 methinks two pages, which difplay fome of the 
 beauties of great geniufes, are of infinitely more 
 value than all the idle rhapfodies of thofe commen- 
 tators; and I will join in opinion with all perfons 
 of good tafte, in declaring, that greater advantage 
 may be reaped from a dozen verfes of Homer or 
 Virgil, than from all the critiques put together 
 which have been made on tbofe two great poets. 
 
 I HAVE ventured to tranflate fome paflagcs of 
 the moft celebrated Englifh poets, and {hall now 
 give you one from Shakefpeare. Pardon the 
 blemifhes of the tranflation for the fake of the ori- 
 ginal ; and remember always that when you fee a 
 verfion, you fee merely a faint print of a beautiful 
 pifture. I have made choice of part of the cele- 
 brated foliloquy in Hamlet, which you may re- 
 member is as follows : 
 
 To be, or mi to be ? -that is the qtieftion. 
 Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to fuffer 
 The flings and arrows of MitragioHS fortune, 
 Or to take arms again/} a fia of troubles, 
 And by oppofing, endtbem?t9 dye .' 
 No more! and by a flcep to fay u<e end 
 K
 
 io8 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 The heart-ach, and the thoufand natural Jhicks 
 That flejh is heir to! 'tis a confummation 
 Devoutly to be wijhed. To die I to JleepJ 
 71? Jleep ? perchance to dream ! ay, there's the rub 
 For in that Jleep of death, what dreams may come 
 When we have fhnffled off this mortal coil, 
 Mufl give us paufe. There's the re/pecJ 
 That makes calamity offo long life : 
 For "who wou'd bear the "whips andfcorns of time, 
 Th' opprejfor's wrong, the proud man's contumely , 
 The fangs of defpis'd love, the law's delay , 
 The infolence of office, and the fpurns 
 That patient merit of th' wnvorthy takes, 
 When he himfelf might his quietus make 
 With a bare bodkin? who would far dies bear 
 To groan and five at under a weary life, 
 But that the dread of fjmething after death, 
 That undifcover'd coutrtry, from whofe bourne 
 No travtller returns, puzzles the will, 
 And makes us rather bear thofe ills we have, 
 Than fly to others that we know not of. 
 Thus confcicuce does make cowards of us all; 
 And thus the native hue of refolution 
 Is Jickled o'er with the pale caft of thought : 
 And enterprizes cf great weight and moment 
 With this regard their currents turn away, 
 And loft the name cf aclion < 
 
 My verfion of it runs thus : 
 
 Dimeure, il faut choifir et pajfcr a I'injlant 
 De la vie, a la mort, cu de I'etre au Meant. 
 Dieux crttels, s'il en eft, eclairez mon courage, 
 Fant-il vieillir courbe fous le main qui m' outrage,
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. Top 
 
 Supporter, on finir mon malheur et mon fort ? 
 Qui fttls je? qui m'an - ote ! et qifeftce qus la mart' 
 C'eft la fin de nos maux, c'eft mon unique azile 
 dpres de long tranfports, c'eft unfommeil tranquile. 
 On s'endort, et tout meurt, mais un affrtux /vz-c */ 
 Dolt fucceder pent etre aux douceurs du fommcil I 
 On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie 
 De tourmem eternels eft auffi-tot fuivie. 
 mort! moment fatal? affreufc et emit is! 
 Tout coeur a ton feul nom fe glace epouvante. 
 Eh! qui pourroit fans Tot fupporter cette vie, 
 Ramper fius un miniftre, adorer ft s hauteurs ; 
 Et inontrer les langueurs de fon ame alattue, 
 Ades amis ingrnts qui detournent la vue ? 
 La wort feroit trcp douce en ces extremitez, 
 Mais le fcrupule park, et nous crie arretez , 
 11 defend a NOS mains cet keureux homicrde 
 Et fun heros guerrier, fait un chretien timide, etc. 
 
 Do not imagine that I have translated Shake- 
 fpeare in a fervile manner. Woe to the \vritcr 
 \vho gives a literal verfion ; \vho by rendering e- 
 very word of his original, by that very means e- 
 nervates the fenfe, and extingulfhcs all the fire of it. 
 It is on fuch an occafion one may jufrly affirm, that 
 the letter kills, but the fpirit quickens. 
 
 HERE follows another paflage copied from a ce- 
 lebrated tragic writer among the Englifh. It is 
 Dryden, a poet in the reign of Charles the fecond ; 
 a writer whofe genius was too exuberant, and not 
 accompanied with judgment enough. Had he writ 
 only a tenth part of the works he left behind him, 
 his character would have been confpicuous in c- 
 K 2
 
 no LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 very part; but his great fault is his having endea- 
 voured to be univerfal. 
 
 THE paflage in queftion is as follows: 
 
 When I conjt'der life r 'tis all a cheat ; 
 Yet fool' d by hope, men favour the deceit; 
 Truft on mid think, to morrow will repay ; 
 To morrow's falfer than the former day ; 
 Lies more i and whilft it fays -we/hall be bleft 
 IVith feme new joy, cuts off -what we pojjeft ; 
 Strange cozenage! none woifd live paft years again , 
 Yet alt hope pltafure in what yet remain, 
 And from the dregs of life think to receive 
 What the firft fprightly running could not give. 
 I'm tir'd -with waiting for this chymic gold, 
 Which fools its young, and beggars us when old. 
 
 I fhall now give you my tranflation. 
 
 De dejjtins en regrets et d?erreurs en dejirs. 
 Les Mortels infenfes promenent lur foiie^ 
 Dans des malheurs prefents, dans I'efpoir des plaijirs 
 Nous ne vivons jamais, nous at tendons la vie, 
 Demain, demain, dot-on, va combler tons nos voeux. 
 Demain-vient, et nous laijje encore plus malheureux, 
 Qf die eft I'errenr, helas / dufoin qui nous devore, 
 Nul de nous ne voudroit recormnencer fan caurs. 
 De nos premiers momens nous maudijjons Vaurore, 
 Et de la nuit qui vient, nous attendons encore 
 Ce qu'ont en vain promts les plus beaux de nos 
 jours, etc. 
 
 IT is in thefe detached paflages that the Englifh 
 have hitherto excelled. Their dramatic pieces, 
 jnoft of which are barbarous and without decorum,, 
 order or verifimilitude, dait fuch refplendent flashes
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION, in 
 
 through this gleam, as amaze and aftonifh us. The 
 ftyle is too much inflated, too unnatural, too clofe- 
 ly copied from the Hebrew writers, who abound 
 fo much with the Afiatic fufh'an. But thenitmufl 
 be alfo confefled, that the ftilts of the figurative 
 ftyle on which the Englifli tongue is lifted up, raifcs 
 the genius at the fame time very far aloft, though 
 with an irregular pace. The firft Englifh writer 
 who compofed a regular Tragedy, and infufed a 
 fpirit of elegance through every part of ic, was 
 the illuftrious Mr. Addifon. His CATO is a mafter- 
 piece both with regard to the diction, and to the 
 beauty and harmony of the numbers. The cha- 
 racter of Cato is, in my opinion, vaftly fuperior 
 to that of Cornelia in the POMPE y of Corneille : for 
 Cato is great without any thing like fuilian, and 
 Cornelia, who beildes is not a neceflary character, 
 tends fometimes to bombafr. Mr. Addifon's Ca- 
 to appears to me the greateft character that ever 
 was brought upon any ftage, but then the reft of 
 them do not correfpond to the dignity of it : and 
 this dramatic piece fo excellently well writ is dil- 
 figured by a dull love-plot, which fpreads a certain 
 languor over the whole, that quite murders it. 
 
 THE cuftom of introducing love at random and 
 at any rate in the drama, pa(Ted from Paris to 
 London about i 660, with our ribbons and our 
 peruques. The ladies who adorn the theatrical 
 circle there, in- like manner as it> the city, will furfer 
 love only to be the theme of every converfation. 
 The judicious Mr- Addifon had the effeminate com- 
 plaifance to foften the feverky of his dramatic cha- 
 racter fo, as to adapt h to the manners of the age; 
 and from an endeavour to pleafc quke ruined a
 
 ii2 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 mafter-piece in its kind. Since his time, the dra- 
 ma is become more regular, the audience more 
 difficult to be pleafed, and writers more correct and 
 lefs bold. I have feen fome new pieces that were 
 written with great regularity, but which at the fame 
 time were very flat and infipid. One would think 
 that the Englifh had been hitherto formed to pro- 
 duce irregular beauties only. The mining mon- 
 fters of Shakefpeare give infinitely more delight than 
 the judicious images of the moderns. Hitherto the 
 poetical genius of the Engliftx refembles a tufted ; 
 tree planted by the hand of nature, that throws out 
 a thoufand branches at random, and fpreads une- 
 qually, but with great vigour. It dies if you at- 
 tempt to force its nature, and to lop and drefs it 
 in the lame manner as the trees of the garden of 
 Marit.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 113 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 OF COMEDY. 
 
 I AM furprized that the judicious and ingeni- 
 ous Mr. de Muralt, who has publiftied fome let- 
 ters on the Engliflu and French nations, fliould 
 have confined himfelf, in treating of comedy, mere- 
 ly to cenfure Shadwell the comic writer. This 
 author was had in pretty great contempt in Mr. 
 de Murah's time, and was not the poet of the po- 
 lite part of the nation. His dramatic pieces, which 
 pleafed fome time in acting, were defpifed by all 
 perfons of tafte, and might be compared to many 
 plays which I have feen in France, that drew crouds 
 to the play-houfe, at the fa/ne time that they were 
 intolerable to read ; and of which it might be faid, 
 that the whole city of Paris exploded them, and 
 yet all flocked to fee them reprefented on the flage. 
 Methinks Mr. de Mural t fhould have mentioned an 
 excellent comic writer, (Jiving when he was in 
 England) I mean Mr. Wycherley, who was a long 
 time known publicly to be happy in the good 
 graces of the mofl celebrated miftrefs of King 
 Charles the fecond. This gentleman, who pafied 
 his life among perfons of the higheft diftindlion, 
 was perfectly well acquainted with their lives and 
 their follies, and painted them with the ftrongeft 
 pencil, and in the true/I colours. He has drawn 
 a Mifanthrope or man-hater, in imitation of that 
 of Moliere. All Wycherley's ftrokes are Wronger 
 and bolder than thofe of our Mifanthrope, but then
 
 H4 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 they are lefs delicate, and the rules of decorum 
 are not fo well obferved in this play. The En- 
 glifli writer has corrected the only defect that is in 
 Moliere's comedy, the thinnefs of the plot, which 
 alfo is fo difpofed that the characters in it do not 
 enough raife our concern. The Engli/h comedy 
 affects us, and che contrivance of the plot is very 
 ingenious, but at the fame time it is too bold for 
 
 the French manners. The fable is this. A 
 
 captain of a man of war, who is very brave, open- 
 hearted, and enflamed with a fpirit of contempt 
 for all mankind, has a prudent fmcere friend whom 
 he yet is fufpiciour. of, and a miftrefs that loves 
 him with the utmoft excefs of paflion. The captain, 
 fo far from returning her love, will not even con- 
 defcend to look upon her ; but confides intirely in 
 a falfe friend, who is the moir, worthlefs wretch 
 living. At the fame time he has given his heart 
 to a creature who is the greateft coquet and the 
 moft perfidious of her fex, and is fo credulous as 
 to be confident {he is a Penelope, and his falfe 
 friend a Cato. He embarks on board his (hip, in 
 order to go and fight the Dutch, having left all his 
 money, his jewels and every thing he had in the 
 world to this virtuous creature, whom at the fame 
 time he recommends to the care of his fuppofed 
 faithful friend. Neverthelefs the real man of ho- 
 nour, whom he fufpefts fo unaccountably, goes 
 on board the (hip with him ; and the miftrefs, on 
 whom he would not beftow fo much as one glance, 
 difguifes herfelf in the habit of a page, and b 
 with him the whole vopge, . without his once 
 knowing that fine is of a fex dUfereut from lhat
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 115 
 
 fhe attempts to pafs for, which, by the way, is not 
 over natural. 
 
 THE captain, having blown up his own fliip In 
 an engagement, returns to England abandoned and 
 undone, accompanied by his page and his friend, 
 without knowing the friendship of the one, or the 
 tender pailion of the other. Immediately he goes 
 to the jewel among women, who he expected had 
 preferved her fidelity to him, and the treafure he 
 had left in her hands. He meets with her indeed, 
 but married to the honeft knave in whom he had 
 repofed fo much confidence ; and finds (he had 
 aled as treacheroufly with regard to the cafket he 
 had entrufled her with. The captain can fcarce 
 think it poflible, that a woman of virtue and ho- 
 nour can act fo vile a part ; but to convince him 
 Hill more of the reality of it, this very worthy la- 
 dy falls in love with the little page, and will force 
 him to her embraces. But as it isrequifitejuftice 
 fhould be done, and that in a dramatic piece vir- 
 tue ought to be rewarded and vice punifned; it is 
 at laft found that the captain takes his page's place, 
 and lies with his faithlefs miftrefs, cuckolds his 
 treacherous friend, thrufts his fword through his 
 body, recovers his caflcet and marries his page. 
 You will obferve that this play is alfo larded with 
 a petulant, litigious old woman (a relation of the 
 captain) who is the mofl comical character that 
 was ever brought upon the ftage. 
 
 WYCHERLEY has alfo copied from Moliere a- 
 nother play, of as fingular and bold a caft, which 
 is a kind of Ecole des Femmes, or, School for mar- 
 ried Women. - 
 
 THE principal character in this comedy is one
 
 n 6' LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 Horner, a fly fortune-hunter, and the terror of 
 all the city hufbands. This fellow, in order to 
 play a furer game, caufes a report to be fpread, 
 that in his laft illnefs, the furgeons had found it 
 necefiary to have him made an eunuch. Upon 
 his appearing in this noble character, all the huf- 
 bands in town flocked to him with their wives, 
 and now poor Homer is only puzzled about his 
 choice. However, he gives the preference parti- 
 cularly to a little female peafant ; a very ha-rmlefs, 
 innocent creature, who enjoys a fine flufh of 
 health, and cuckolds her hufband with a fimplici- 
 ty that has infinitely more merit than the witty 
 malice of the moft experienced ladies. This play 
 cannot indeed be called- the fchool of good morals, 
 but it is certainly the fchool of wit and true hu- 
 mour. 
 
 SIR John Vanbrugh has writ feveral comedies 
 which are more humorous than thofe of Mr. Wy- 
 cherley, but not fo ingenious. Sir John was a 
 man of pleafure, and likewife a poet and an ar- 
 chitect. The general opinion is, that he is as 
 fprightly in his writings as he is heavy in his build- 
 ings. It is he who raifed the famous caftle of 
 Blenheim, a ponderous and lafting monument of 
 our unfortunate battle of Hockftet. Were the 
 apartments but as fpacious as the walls are thick, 
 this caftle would be commodious enough. Some 
 wag, in an epitaph he made on Sir John Vanbrugb, 
 has thefe lines : 
 
 Lie heavy on him earth, for he 
 Laid many a heavy load on thee.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 117 
 
 SIR John having taken a tour into France be- 
 fore the glorious war that broke out in 1701, 
 was thrown into the Baftile, and detained there 
 for fome time, without being ever able to difco- 
 ver the motive which had prompted our n.imfcry 
 to indulge him this mark of their diftinclion. He 
 writ a comedy during his confinement; and a cir- 
 cumftance which appears to me very extra<; r dl:.a- 
 ry, is, that we do not meet with fo ruuch s a 
 {Ingle fatirical ftroke againft the country in s'-.uch 
 he had been fo injurioufly treated. 
 
 THE late Mr. Congreve raifed the glory 
 Riedy to a greater height than any Engliih writer 
 before or fince his time. He wrote only a few 
 plays, but they are all excellent in their kind. 
 The laws of the drama are ftric~tly obferved in them; 
 they abound with characters, all which are Ihadow- 
 ed with the utmoft delicacy, and we do not meet 
 with fo much as one low, or coarfe jeft. The 
 language is every where that of men of honour, 
 but their actions are thofe of knaves; a proof that 
 he was perfectly well acquainted with human na- 
 ture, and frequented what we call polite compa- 
 ny. He was infirm, and come to the verge of 
 life when I knew him. Mr. Congreve had one 
 defect, which was, his entertaining too mean an 
 idea of his firft profeffion, (that of a writer) though 
 it was to this he owed his fame and fortune. He 
 fpoke of his works as o'f trifles that were beneath 
 him ; and hinted to me, itfour firft converfation,, 
 that I fhould vifit him upon no other foot than 
 that of a gentleman, who led a life of plainnefs 
 and jGmplicity. I anfwered, that had he been fo 
 unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman I fiiould
 
 never have come to fee him ; and I was very 
 much difgufted at fo unfeafonable a piece of va- 
 nity. 
 
 MR. Congreve's comedies are the moft witty 
 and regular, thofe of Sir John Vanbrugh moft gay 
 and humorous, and thofe of Mr. Wycherley have 
 the greateft force and fpirit. It may be proper to 
 obferve, that thefe fine geniufes never fpoke difad- 
 vantageoufly of Moliere ; and that none but the 
 contemptible writers among the Englifh have en- 
 deavoured to leflen the character of that great comic 
 poet. Such Italian muficians as defpife Lully are 
 themfelves perfons of no character or ability ; but 
 a Buononcini efteems that great artifl-, and does 
 jufKce to his merit. 
 
 THE Englifh. have fome other good comic wri- 
 ters living, fuch as Sir Richard Steel, and Mr. 
 Cibber, who is an excellent player, and alfo poet 
 laureat; a title which, how ridiculous foever it 
 may be thought, is yet worth a thoufand crowns 
 a year, (befides fome considerable privileges) to 
 the perfon who enjoys it. Our illuftrious Cor- 
 neille had not fo much. 
 
 To conclude. Do not defire me to defcend to 
 particulars with regard to thefe Englifh. comedies, 
 which I am fo fond of applauding; nor to give 
 you a fingle fmart faying, or humorous ftroke 
 from Wychefley or Congreve. We do not laugh 
 in reading a tranflation. If you have a mind to 
 underfland the Englifh comedy, the only way to 
 do this will be for you to go to England, to fpcnd 
 three years in London, to make yourfelf matter 
 of the Englifh. tongue, and to frequent the play- 
 houfe every night. I receive but little pleafure
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. no 
 
 from the gerufal of Ariftophanes and Plautus, and 
 for this reafon, becaufe I am neither a Greek nor 
 a Roman. The delicacy of the humour, the allufi- 
 on, the a propos, all thefe are loft to a foreigner. 
 
 BUT it is different with refpecl to tragedy, this 
 treating only of exalted paflions and heroical fol- 
 lies, which the antiquated errors of fable or hiftory 
 have made facred. Oedipus, Eleflra, and fuch 
 like characters may, with as much propriety, be 
 treated of by the Spaniards, the Englifh, or us, 
 as by the Greeks. But true comedy is the fpeak- 
 ing pifture of the follies and ridiculous foibles of a 
 nation ; fo that he only is able to judge of the 
 painting, who is perfectly acquainted with the peo- 
 ple it reprefents.
 
 120. LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 OF SUCH OF THE NOBILITY 
 AS CULTIVATE THE BELLES 
 L E T T R E S. 
 
 THERE once was a time in France when the 
 polite arts were cultivated by perfons of the high- 
 eft rank in the ilate. The courtiers particularly 
 were converfant in them, although indolence, a 
 tafte for trifles, and a paflion for intrigue, were 
 the divinities of the country. The court, methinks, 
 at this time feems to have given into a tafle quite 
 oppofite to that of polite literature, but perhaps 
 the mode of thinking may be revived in a little 
 time. The French are of fo flexible a difpo'fid- 
 on, may be moulded into fuch^a variety of fliapes, 
 that the monarch needs but command and he is 
 immediately obeyed. The Englim generally think, 
 and learning is had in greater honour among them 
 than in our country; an advantage that refults 
 naturally from the form of their government. 
 There are about eight hundred perfons in England 
 \vho have a right to fpeak in public, and to fup- 
 port the intereft of the kingdom ; and near five or 
 fix thoufand may, in their turns, afpire to the fame 
 honour. The whole nation fet themfelves up as 
 judges over thefe, and every man has the liberty 
 of publishing his thoughts with regard to public 
 affairs ; which {hews that all the people in gene- 
 ral are indifpenfably obliged to cultivate their un- 
 derilandings. In England the governments of
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 121 
 
 Greece and Rome are the fubicft of every conver- 
 fation, fo that every man is under a neceflity of 
 perufing fuch authors as treat of them, how difa- 
 greeable foever it may be to him ; and this ftudy 
 leads naturally to that of polite literature. Man- 
 kind in general fpeak well in their refpeftive pro- 
 feflions. What is the reafon why our magiftrates, 
 our lawyers, our phylicians, and a great number 
 of the clergy, are abler fcholars, have a finer tafte 
 and more wit, than perfons of all other profeflions? 
 The reafon is, becaufe their condition of life re- 
 quires a cultivated and enlightened mind, in the 
 fame manner as a merchant is obliged to be ac- 
 quainted with his traffic. Not long fince an Eng- 
 lifh nobleman, who was very young, came to fee 
 me at Paris in his return from Italy. He had writ 
 a poetical defcription of that country, \vhrcbj for 
 delicacy and politenefs, may vie with any thing we 
 meet with in the earl of Rochefter, or in our Cha- 
 lieu, our Sarafin, or Chapelle. The tranflation I 
 have given of it is fo inexpreffive of the ftreni;th 
 and delicate humour of the original, that I am o- 
 bliged ferioufly to a(k pardon of the author, and 
 of all who underfhnd Engliih. However, as this 
 is the only method I have to makf his lordfhip's 
 verfes known, I {ball here prefent you with them 
 in our tongue. 
 
 Qiiay je done vu Sans /' Italze ? 
 Orgiieil, Ajluce, et Pauvrete, 
 Grands Compliment, feu de Bonte 
 Et beaucoup de ceremonis. 
 L 2
 
 122 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 Vextravagante Comedie 
 >ue fouvent /' Inquifition $ 
 Veut qu'on nomme Religion ; 
 Mais qu'ici nous nomnwns Folte. 
 
 La Nature en vain bienfaifante 
 Veut enricher Jes Lieux charmans, 
 Des Pretres la main defolante 
 Etouffe fes plus beaux prefens. 
 
 Les Monfignors, foy difant Grands, 
 Seuls dam leurs Palais magnifiques 
 T font a" illuftres faineants. 
 Sans argent, et fans domeftiques, 
 
 Pour les Petiis , fans liberte, 
 Wartvr* du iQU qui les domine, 
 Us ont fait voeu de pauvrete, 
 Prlant Dieu par oifivete 
 Et toujours jeunant par famine. 
 
 Ces beux Iteux da Pape benis 
 Semblent habitez par les Diables ; 
 Et les Habitants miferables 
 Sent damnsz dans le Paradis. 
 
 \ His lordlliip undoubtedly hints at the farces which certain, 
 preachers aft in the open
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 123 
 
 L E T T E R XXL 
 
 OF THE EARL OF ROCHESTER 
 AND MR. W A L L E R, 
 
 THE earl of Rochefter's name is vmiverfally 
 known. Mr. de St. Evremont has made very fre- 
 quent mention of him, but then he has reprefent- 
 ed this famous nobleman in no other light than as 
 the man of pleafure, as one who was the idol of 
 the fair; but with regard to myfelf, I would will- 
 ingly defcribe in him the man of genius, :he great 
 poet. Among other pieces which difplay the fliin- 
 ing imagination his lorddiip only could boall, he 
 wrote lome fatlres on the fame fubjefts as thofe 
 our celebrated Boileau made choice of. I do not 
 know any better method of improving the tatte, 
 than to compare the productions of inch great ge- 
 niufes as have exercifed their talent on the fame fub- 
 jedl. Boileau declaims as follows againft human 
 reafon in his fatire on man. 
 
 dependant a !e voir phin (k vapsurs legeres f 
 Sci-mcme fe bercer de ces proprts chimeres r 
 Lui feal de la nature eft la baze et I'appni, 
 Et le dixieme del ne tourne qu? pour ///;'. 
 De tons Its slmmaux il eft lei le Mai f re ; 
 ui pcurrort le nier, pow-Jiiis tu P Jlloi psui- 
 
 etre. 
 
 Ce maitre pretendu qnl leur donne des loix, 
 Ce Roi des Animwx, conibien a-Cil de Rcis ? 
 L 3
 
 I2 4 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 Tet, pleas' d ivith idle whimfies of his brain, 
 And puff 'd with pride, this haughty thing would! 
 
 fain 
 
 Be thought himfelf the only flay and prop 
 That holds the mighty frame of nature up. 
 The Jkies and jlars his properties muft feem, 
 
 Of all the creatures he's the Lord, he cries. 
 
 And who is there, fay you, that dares deny 
 So own'd a truth ? That may be, Sir, do I. 
 
 This boafted monarch of the world who awes 
 The creatures here, and with his nod gives laws; 
 This /elf-nani'd king, who thus pretends to bs 
 The lord of all, how many lords has he? 
 
 OUDHAM a little altered. 
 
 THE lord Rochefter exprefTes himfelf, in his 
 fatire againft man, in pretty near the following 
 manner: but I mufl firft defire you always to re- 
 member, that the verfions I give you from the 
 Englifh poets are written with freedom and lati- 
 tude; and that the reftraint of our verification,, 
 awl the delicacies of the French tongue, will not 
 allow a tranflator to convey into it the licentious 
 impetuofity and fire of the Englifti numbers. 
 
 Get EJprit que je hais, cet EJprit plein d^erreur, 
 Ge rieft pas ma raifon, c'eft la tienne Dotteur. 
 C'efl la raifon frivole, inquire, orgeuilleujc 
 Des fages Animaux, rival? dcdagneufe, 
 ghji croit entr'eux et I" Angc, occnper le milieu, 
 Et pence etre id bas I* image de fon Dieu.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 
 
 Vil atome imparfait, qui croit, doute, dlfpute 
 Rampe, s'eleve, tombe, et me encore fa chut f. 
 >ui nous dit je fuis libre, en nous montrant fes 
 
 fers, 
 Et dont Voeil trouble et faux, croit , percer /' 
 
 nivers. 
 
 Allez, reverends Fous, bienheureux Fanatiques, 
 Campilez bien l*Amas de vos Riensfcholaftiques, 
 Peres de Vificns, et d'Enigmes facrez t 
 jfuteurs du Labirinthe, ou vous vous egarez. 
 jllkz obfcurement eclaircir vos mifteres y 
 Et courez dans I'ecole adorer vos chimeres.. 
 // eft d'autres erreurs, il eft de ces devots 
 Condawne pour eaux memes a I'ennui du repos. 
 Ce myftique encloitre, fier de Jon indolence 
 Tranquille> aufein de Dieu. >ue peut il falre ? 
 
 11 penfe. 
 
 Non, tu ne penfes point, miferable tu dors : 
 Inutile a la terre, et mis au rang des Moris* 
 Ton efprit enerve croupit dans l& Moleffe. 
 Reveille toi, fois bomme, et fers de ton Yvrejft. 
 Vhomme eft- ne pour agir, et tu pretens pen- 
 
 fer? etc. 
 
 The original runs tfrus: 
 
 Hold, mighty man, I cry all this "we know? 
 
 And 'tis this very reafon I dcfpife. 
 
 This fuper natural gift, that makes a mite 
 
 Think he's the image of the infinite; 
 
 Comparing his Jhort life, void of all reft? 
 
 To t-he eternal and the ever blefl. 
 
 This bujy, puzzling ftirrer up of doubt-, 
 
 That frames deep my ft cries, then finds 'em out,
 
 125 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 Filling, with frantic crouds of thinking fools , 
 Thofe reverend bedlams, colleges and fc hods ; 
 Borne on >whofe wings, each heavy fit can 
 
 pierce 
 
 The limits of the boundlefs univerfe. 
 So charming ointments make an old witch fly t 
 And bear a crippled car cafe through the fky. 
 'Tis this exalted power, ivhofe bu/inefs lies 
 In nonfenfe and impoffibiliti-es. 
 7 'his made a -whim/teal philofopher^ 
 Before the Jpacious -world his tub prefer ; 
 And -we have modern cloifter'd coxcombs, ivho- 
 Retire to think, 'caitfe they have nought to do : 
 But thoughts are giv'n for action's govern- 
 ment, 
 Where atfion ceafes, thought's impertinent. 
 
 WHETHER thefe ideas are true or falfe, it is cer- 
 tain they are exprefTed with an energy and fire 
 which form the poet. I /hall be very far from at- 
 tempting to examine philofophically into thefe 
 verfesj to lay down the pencil snd take lip the 
 rule and compafs on this occafion ; my only de- 
 fign, in this letter, being to difplay the genius of 
 the English poets, and therefore I fhall continue 
 HI the fame view. 
 
 THE celebrated Mr. Waller has been very rmich 
 talked of in France, and Mr. de la Fontaine, St. 
 Evremont and Bayle, have written his Elogium, 
 feuf Mill his name only is known. He had much 
 the fame reputation in London as Voiture had in 
 Paris, and in my opinion deferved it better. Voi- 
 ture was born in an age that was juft emerging 
 from barbarity ; an age thai was ftill rude and ig-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 127 
 
 norant, the people of which aimed at wit, though 
 they had not the leaft pretenfions to it, and fought 
 for points and conceits inftead of fentiments. Brif- 
 tol ftones are more eafily found than diamonds. 
 Voiture, born with an eafy and frivolous genius, 
 was the firit who Ihone in this Aurora of French 
 Eterature. Had he come into the world after thofc 
 great geniufes who fpread fuch a glory over the age 
 of Lewis the fourteenth, he would either have been 
 unknown, would have been defpifed, or would 
 have corrected his ftile. Boileau applauded him, 
 but it was in his fait fatires, at a time when the 
 tafte of that great poet was not yet formed. He 
 was young, and in an age when perfons form a 
 judgment of men from their reputation, and not 
 from their writings. Befides, Boileau was very 
 partial both in his encomiums and his cenfures. He 
 applauded Segrais, whofe works no body reads; 
 he abufed Quinault, whofe poetical pieces every 
 one has got by heart, and is wholly filent upon 
 La Fontaine. Waller, though a better poet than 
 Voiture, was not yet a finifhed poet. The grac- 
 es breathe in fuch of Waller's works as are writ 
 In a tender flrain, but then they are languid through 
 negligence, and often disfigured with falfe thoughts. 
 The Englifn had not, in his time, attained the art 
 of correct writing. But his ferious compofitions 
 exhibit a ftrength and vigour which could not have 
 been expected from the foftnefs and effeminacy of 
 his other pieces. He wrote an elegy on Oliver 
 Cromwell, which, with all its fauhs, is neverthe- 
 lefs looked upon as a mafter-piece. To underftand 
 this copy of verfes, you are to know that the day
 
 128 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 Oliver died was remarkable for a great ftorm. IBs 
 poem begins id this manner : 
 
 Ilrieft plus, s'en efl fait foumettons nous ait fcrl, 
 Le del a fignale ce jour par des tempetes, 
 Et la voix des tc/nnerres eclatant fur nos tetes- 
 Vient d'anoncer fa mort. 
 
 Par fes de rnier s fcuprls il ebranle cet He; 
 
 Get He que Jon bras fit trembler tant de fois, 
 
 ghtand dans le cours de fes Exploits, 
 
 Jl brifoit la tete des Rois, 
 
 Et foumettoit un peupk afon joug feul docile. 
 
 Mer tu fen es trouble , Mer tes flots emus 
 
 Semblent dire en grondant aux plus lointains ri- 
 
 vages 
 $>ue Feffroi de la terre et ton Malt re ri eft plus, 
 
 Tel au del autrefoh s'envola Romulus, 
 Tel il quita la Terre, au milieu des orages- r 
 Tel (Tun peuple guerrier il recut les homages; 
 Obedi dans fa vie, a fa mort adore,. 
 Son palais fut un temple, etc. 
 
 We muftrefign! Heav'nbis great foul does claim 
 
 In ftorms as loud as his immortal fame : 
 
 His dying groans, his la ft breath Jbakes our ijle. 
 
 And trees uncut fall for hi s furfral pile? 
 
 About his palace their broad roots are toft 
 
 Into the air , fo Romulus was loft ; 
 
 Ateiy Rome in fitch a tempeft mifs'd her king, 
 
 And from obeying fell to luorjhipping ; 
 
 On Oeta'j top thus Hercules lay. dead, 
 
 With ruin* d oaks and pines about himfpread,
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 129 
 
 Nature herfelftook notice of his death, 
 dnd,Jtghing,fu>eird thefea ivithfuch a breath^ 
 That to remoteft Jhores the billows rolfdy 
 Tti approaching fate of his great rider told. 
 
 W A L I E R. 
 
 IT was this elogium that gave occafion to the 
 reply (taken notice of in Bayle's dictionary,) which 
 Waller made to king Charles the fecond. This 
 king, to whom Waller had a little before (as is 
 ufual with bards and monarchs) prefented a copy 
 of verfes embroidered with praifes, reproached the 
 poet for not writing with fo much energy and fire 
 as when he had applauded the ufurper (meaning 
 Oliver;) Sir, replied Waller to the king, we poets 
 fucceed better in fiflhn than in truth. This an- 
 fwer was not fo fincere as that which a Dutch am- 
 baflador made, who, when the fame monarch com- 
 plained that his maflers paid lefs regard to him than 
 they had done to Cromwell ; ah Sir ! fays the 
 ambaflador, Oliver "was quite another man -It is 
 not my intent to give a commentary on Waller's 
 character, nor on that of any other perfon; for 
 I confider men after their death in no other light 
 than as they were writers, ?nd wholly difregard 
 every thing elfe. I (hall only obferve, that Waller, 
 though born in a court, and to an eftate of five or 
 fix thoufand pounds fterling a year, was never fb 
 proud or fo indolent as "to lay afide the happy talent 
 which nature had indulged him. The earls of 
 Dorfet and Rofcommon, the two dukes of Buck- 
 ingham, the lord Halifax, and fo many other noble- 
 men, did not think the reputation they obtained 
 of very great poets and illuftrious writers, any
 
 130 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 \vay derogatory to their quality. They are more 
 glorious for their works than for their titles. Thefe 
 cultivated the polite arts with as much afliduity, 
 as though they had been their whole dependence. 
 They alfo have made learning appear venerable 
 in the eyes of the vulgar, who have need to be 
 led in all things by the great, and who neverthe- 
 lefs fafhion their manners lefs after thofe of the 
 nobility (in England I mean) than in any other 
 country in the world.
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 OF MR. POPE, AND SOME OTHER 
 FAMOUS POETS. 
 
 I INTENDED to treat of Mr. Prior, one 
 of the moit amiable Englifh poets, whom you 
 faw plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary at 
 Paris in 1712. I alfo defigned to have given you 
 fome idea of the lord Rofcommon's and the lord 
 Dorfet's mufe ; but I find that to do this I mould 
 be obliged to write a large volume, and that after 
 much pains and trouble you would have but an 
 imperfect idea of all thofe works. Poetry is a kind 
 of mufic in which a man mould have fome know- 
 lege, before he pretends to judge of it. When I 
 give you a tranflation of fome paflages from thofe 
 foreign poets, I only prick down, and that im- 
 perfectly, their mufic; but then I cannot exprefs 
 the tafte of their harmony. 
 
 THERE is one Englifh poem efpecially, which 
 I fhould defpair of ever making you underfrand, 
 the title whereof is Hudibras. The fubject of it 
 is the civil war in the time of the grand rebellion; 
 and the principles and practice of the Puritans are 
 therein ridiculed. It is Don Quixote, it is our * Sa- 
 
 * Species of latire in profe and verfe, w ritten in France in 
 1594, a; :'iiift the chiefs of the league at that time. Thi> fa- 
 tire which U alfo called Cuholicon d' Kfpagne, wa> looked 
 upon as a maftcr piece. Rapin, Le Roi, Piih-'ii, Paflliat and 
 Chretien, the grifeft wits of that a^c, an il.c 
 anJit was entitled Menippcc. 'Trorti M 
 
 M
 
 i 3 2 LETTERS CONCERN! NG 
 
 tyre Menippee blended together. I never found 
 fo much wit in one Tingle book as in that, which 
 at the fame time is the moft difficult to be tranf- 
 lated. "Who would believe that a work which 
 paints in fuch lively and natural colours the feveral 
 foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet 
 with more fentiments than words, mould baffle 
 the endeavours of the ableft tranflator ? but the 
 reafon of this is, almoft every part of it alludes to 
 particular incidents. The clergy are there made 
 the principal object of ridicule, which is under- 
 ftood but by few among the laity. To explain 
 this, a commentary would be requifite, and hu- 
 mour when explained is no longer humour. 
 AVhoever fets up for a commentator of fmart fay- 
 ings and repartees, is himfelf a blockhead. This 
 is the reafon why the woiks of the ingenious 
 Dean Swift, who has been called the Englilli Ra- 
 belais, will never be well underftood in France. 
 This gentleman has the honour (in common with 
 Rnbelais) of being a prieft, and like him laughs at 
 every thing. But in my humble opinion, the title 
 of the English. Rabelais, which is given the dean, 
 is highly derogatory to his genius. The former 
 has interfperfed his unaccountably fantaftic and un- 
 intelligible book, with the moft gay ftrokes of hu- 
 mour, but which at the fame time has a greater 
 proportion of impertinence. He has been vaftly 
 laviih of erudition, of fmut, and infipid raillery. 
 An agreeable tale of two pages is purchafed at the 
 expence of whole volumes of nonfenfe. There 
 
 Jofopher, who had written letters filled with fharp, fatirical 
 exprcflions, in imitation of Varro, who compofcd fatii'es which 
 he entitled Satyrae Mfenippcae.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 133 
 
 are but few perfons, and thofe of a grotcfque tafte, 
 who pretend to underftand, and to efkem this 
 work; for as to the reft of the nation, they laugh 
 at the pleafant and diverting touches which are 
 found in Rabelais, and defpife his book. He is 
 looked upon as the prince of buffoons. The 
 readers are vexed to think that a man, who was 
 mafter of fo much wit, (hould have made fo 
 wretched an ufe of it. He is an intoxicated phi- 
 lofopher, who never writ but when he was in li- 
 quor. 
 
 DEAN SWIFT is Rabelais in his fenfes, and' fre- 
 quenting the politeft company. The former in- 
 deed is not fo gay as the latter, but then he pof- 
 felfes afr the delicacy, the juftnefs, the choice, the 
 good tafre, in all which particulars our'gigling ru- " 
 ral vicar Rabelais is wanting. The poetical num- 
 bers of dean Swift are of a fingular and almoit in- 
 imitable tafte; true humour, whether in profe or 
 verfe, feems to be his peculiar talent; but whoever 
 is defirous of underftanding him perfectly, muft. 
 viHt the ifland in which he was born. 
 
 IT will be much eafier for you to form an idea 
 of Mr. Pope's works. He is, in my opinion, the 
 moft elegant, the moft correct poet ; and at the 
 fame time the moft harmonious (a eircumfhnce 
 which redounds very much to the honour of his 
 rmife) that England ever gave birth to. He has 
 mellowed the harlh founds of the Englifh trumpet 
 to the foft accents of the flute. His compositions 
 may be eafily tranflated, becaufe they are vaftly 
 clear and perfpicuous; befides, moft of his fubjefts 
 are general, and relative to all nations. 
 
 His EfTay on Criticifm will foon be. known in 
 M 2
 
 134 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 France, by the tranflation which 1'Abbe de Renel 
 has made of it. 
 
 HERE is an extract from his poem entitled the 
 Rape of the Lock, -which I juft now tranilated with 
 the latitude I ufually take on thefe occafions ; for 
 once again, nothing can be more ridiculous than to 
 tranflate a poet literally. 
 
 UMBRIEL, a fin/I ant, vie.il Gnome rechigne, 
 Va d'une aile pefante et d"un air renfrogne 
 Chercher en murmur ant la caverns profonde, 
 Ou loin des doux raions que repandfceildu monde 
 La Deejfe aux vapeurs a choififonfejour, 
 Les trifles Aquilons y Jlflent a I'entoitr. 
 Et le foufle mal fain de leur aride haleine 
 T forte aux environs la fievre et la migraine. 
 Stir un riche fofa derriere un paravent 
 Loin des flambeaux, du bruit, des parleurs et du 
 
 vent, 
 
 La quinteufe Deejfe incejjamment repofe, 
 Le coeur gros de chagrin, fans enfavoir la caitfe. 
 Waiant penfee jatnais, I'ejprit toujours trouble, 
 Voeil charge, le teint pale, et rhypocondre enflc. 
 Lamedijante Envie, efl ajjife aupres d'elle, 
 Vicil fpeclre feminin, decrepit? pucelle, 
 Avec un air dcvot dechirautfonprochain, 
 Et chanfonnant les gens Fevangile a la main, 
 Sur. un lit plein de fleurs negligemment punches 
 Vne jeune Beaute non kin d"dle tfl couchee, 
 Ccfl r Affectation qui graj/hie en parlant, 
 Ecoitte fans entendre, et lorgne en regardant. 
 )ui roitgit fans pudeur, et rit de tout fans joie, 
 De cent maitx differens pretend qu'elle efl la 
 
 proie ;
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 135 
 
 Et pleine dc fante feus le rouge et le fard, 
 Se plains avec moleffe, et fe fame avec art. 
 
 UMERIEL, a dtefky, melancholy fpr its 
 As ever fullied the fair face of light, 
 Down to the central earth, his proper fcene, 
 Repairs tofearch the gloomy cave of Spleen. 
 Swift on his footy pinions flits the Gnome, 
 And in a vapour reactid the difinal dome. 
 No chcarful breeze this fullen region knows, 
 The dreaded caft is all the wind that blows. 
 Here, in a grotto, Jhelter'd clofe from air, 
 And fcreen'd in Jhades from day's detefted glare, 
 She Jighs for ever on her penfive bed, 
 Pain at her fide, and Megrim at her head, 
 Two handmaids wait the throne : alike in place, 
 But diff' ring far in figure and in face, 
 If ere flood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, 
 Her wrinkled form in black and white a>~ray\l ; 
 With ftore of prayers for mornings, nights, and 
 
 noons, 
 
 Her hand is filfd ; her bofom with lampoons. 
 There Affeftation, with afick/y mein, 
 Shows in her cheek the rofes of eighteen, 
 Praflis 'd to lifp, and hang the head afide, 
 Faints into airs, and languijbes with pride ; 
 On the rich quilt Jinks with becoming woe, 
 Wrapt in agown,forficknefs aird for flow. 
 
 THIS extrafl in the original, (not in the faint 
 tranflation I have given you of it) may be compar- 
 ed to the defcription of La MoleiFc (foftnefs or ef- 
 feminacy) in Boileau's Lutrin. 
 
 METHINKS I now have given 3-011 fpcciicens 
 M 3
 
 1.36 BETTERS CONCERNING , 
 
 enough from the Englifh poets. I have made 
 fome tranfient mention of their philosophers, but 
 as for good hiflorians among them, I do not know 
 of any; and' indeed a Frenchman was forced' to 
 write their hiftory. Poffibly the Englifh genius, 
 which id ekher languid or -impetuous, has not yet 
 acquired that unaftefted eloquence, that plain but 
 njajeftic air, which hiftory requires. Poflibly too, 
 the fpirit of party, which exhibits objects in a dim 
 and-confufed light, may have funk the credit of 
 their- hiflorians. One half of the nation is always 
 af variance with the other half. I have met with 
 people^ who afTured me that the duke of Marlbo- 
 rough was a coward, and that Mr. Pope, was a 
 fool; juft as fome Jefuits in France declare Psfcal 
 w> have been a man of little or no genius; and 
 feme Janfenifts affirm father Bourdaloue to have 
 been a mere babbler. The- Jacobites confrder 
 Mary queen of Scots as a pious heroine, but thofe 
 of an oppofite party look upon her .as a proftituxe, . 
 an adulterefs, a murderer. Thus the Englifh. have ; 
 memorials of the feveral reigns, but no fuch thing 
 as a hiftozy* There is indeed now living, one 
 Mr. Gordon, (the public are obliged to him for a 
 tranflation of Tacitus) who is very capable of writ- 
 ing -.the hiftory of his own country, but Rapin.de 
 Thoyras got the dart of him. To -conclude, hv 
 my opinion, trre Englifh have not fuch good hi- 
 florians as the French, have no fuch thing as a real 
 tragedy s have feveral delightful comedies, fome 
 wonderful pafrages in certain of- their poems, and 
 boa ft of philofophers that are worthy of inftrucYmg. 
 npankind. The Englifh have reaped very great 
 benefit from ,tlje writers, of our nation, .and there-
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION i .37 
 
 fore we ought, (fince they have not fcrupled to be 
 in our debt) to borrow from them. Both the 
 Englifh and we came after the Italians, who have 
 been our inftruftors in all the arts, and whom we 
 have furpalTed in fome. I cannot determine whichr 
 of the three nations ought to be honoured with 
 the palm ; but happy the writer who could dif~ 
 play their various merits,
 
 138 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 OF THE REGARD THAT OUGHT TO BE 
 SHEWN TO MEN OF LETTERS. 
 
 NEITHER the Englifh, nor any other people, 
 have foundations eftabliftied in favour of the polite 
 arts like thofe in France. There are univerfities 
 in mofl countries, but it is in France only that we 
 meet with fo beneficial an encouragement for a- 
 ftronomy, and all parts of the mathematics, for 
 phyfic, for refearches into antiquity, for painting, 
 fculpture and architecture. Lewis the fourteenth 
 has immortalized his name by thefe feveral foun- 
 dations, and this immortality did not coft him two 
 hundred thoufand livres a year. 
 
 I MUST confefs, that one of the things I very 
 much wonder at, is, that as the parliament of 
 Great Britain have promifed a reward of twenty 
 thoufand pounds Sterling to any perfon who may 
 difcover the longitude, they fhould never have once 
 thought to imitate Lewis the fourteenth in his mu- 
 nificence with regard to the arts and fciences. 
 
 MERIT indeed meets in England with rewards 
 of another kind, which redound inere to the ho- 
 nour of the nation. The Englifh have fo great a 
 veneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit 
 , in their country is always fure of making his for- 
 tune. Mr. Addifon in France would have been 
 , elected a member of one of the academies, and, by 
 the credit of fome women, might have obtained a 
 yearly penfion of twelve hundred livres ; or elfe
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 139 
 
 might have been imprifoned in the Baftile, upon 
 pretence that certain ftrokesinhis tragedy of Cato 
 had been difcovered, which glanced at the porter 
 of fome man in power. Mr. Add ;r on was raifed 
 to the port of fecretary of ftate in England. Sir 
 Ifaac Newton was made warden of the royal mint. 
 Mr, Congreve had a confiderable * employment. 
 Mr. Prior was plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is Dean 
 of St. Patrick in Dublin, and is more revered in 
 Ireland than the primate himfelf. The religion 
 which Mr. Pope profefles excludes him indeed from 
 preferments of every kind, but then it did not 
 prevent his gaining two hundred thoufand livres 
 by his excellent tranflation of Homer. I myfelf 
 faw a long time in France the author of f Rha- 
 damiftus ready to peri(h for hunger : and the fon 
 of one of the greateft men ^ our country ever gave 
 birth to, and who was beginning to run the noble 
 career which his father had fet him, would have 
 been reduced to the extremes of mifery, had he not 
 been patronized by Mr. Fagon. 
 
 BUT the circumftance which mofUy encourages 
 the arts in England, is the great veneration which 
 is paid them. The piclure of the prime minifter 
 hangs over the chimney of his own clofet, but I 
 have feen that of Mr. Pope in twenty noblemens 
 houfes. Sir Ifaac Newton was revered in his life- 
 time, and had a due refpeft paid to him after his 
 death; the greateft men in the nation difputing 
 who (hould have the honour of holding up his 
 pall. Go into Weftminfter-Abbey, and you will 
 find, that what raifes the admiration of the fpe- 
 
 Secretary for Jamaica, f Mr. de Crebiilon. J R.acine.
 
 140 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 ftator is not the maufoleums of the Englifh kings, 
 but the monuments, which the gratitude of the 
 nation has erected to perpetuate the memory of 
 thofe illuftrious men who contributed to its glory; 
 We view their ftatues in that abbey in the fame 
 manner, as thofe of Sophocles, Plato and other 
 immortal perfonages were viewed in Athens; and 
 I am perfuaded, that the bare fight of thofe glori- 
 ous monuments has fired more than one breafr, 
 and been the oecafion of their becoming great 
 men. 
 
 THE Englifh have even been reproached with 
 paying too extravagant honours to mere merit, 
 and cenfured for interring the celebrated adtrefs 
 Mrs. Oldfield in Weftminfter-Abbey, with almoft 
 the fame pomp as Sir Ifaac Newton. Some pre- 
 tend that the Englifh had paid her thefe great fu- 
 neral honours, purpofely to make us more (Irongly 
 fenfible of the barbarity and injufHce which they 
 object to us, for having buried Mademoifelle le 
 Couvreur ignominioufly in the fields. 
 
 BUT be affured from me, that the Englifh were 
 prompted by no other principle, in burying Mrs. 
 Oldfield in Weftminfter- Abbey, than their good 
 fenfe. They are far from being fo ridiculous as 
 to brand with infamy an art which has immortalized 
 an Euripides and a Sophocles; or to exclude from 
 the body of their citizens a fet of people whofe- 
 bufinefs is to fet off, with the utmoft grace of- 
 fpeech and action, thofe pieces which the nation is- 
 proud of. 
 
 UNDER, the reign of Charles the firft, and in- 
 the beginning of the civil wars raifed by a number 
 f rigid fanatics, who at laft were the victims- to
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 141 
 
 it,, a great many pieces were publimed againft thea- 
 trical and other (hews, which were attacked with 
 the greater virulence, becaufe that monarch arid 
 his queen, daughter to Henry the fourth of France, 
 were paffionately fond of them. 
 
 ONE Mr. Prynne, a man of moft furioufly 
 fcrupulous principles, who would have thought 
 himfelf damned had he wore a caflbck inftead of a 
 fhort cloak, and have been glad to fee one half of 
 mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of 
 God, and the propaganda fide; took it into his 
 head to wrice a mod wretched fatire againft fome 
 pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very 
 innocently every night before their Majefties. He 
 quoted the authority of the Rabbi's, and fome paf- 
 fages from St. Bonaventure, to prove that the 
 OEdipus of Sophocles was the work of the evil fpi- 
 rit; that Terence was excommunicated ipfo facto; 
 and added, that doubtlefs Brutus, who was a very 
 fevere Janfenift, alTaffinated Julius Caefar, for no 
 other reafon, but becaufe he, who was pontifex 
 maximus, prefumed to write a tragedy, the fubjecl 
 of which was OEdipus. Laftly, he declared, that 
 all who frequented the theatre were excommunicat- 
 ed, as they thereby renounced their baptifm. This 
 was carting the higheft infult on the King and all 
 the royal family ; and as the Englifh loved their 
 prince at that time, they could not bear to hear a 
 writer talk of excommunicating him, though they 
 themfelves afterwards cut his head off. Prynne 
 was fummoned to appear before the ftar-ch.imber ; 
 his wonderful book, from which father Le Brim 
 flole his, was fentenced to be burnt by the com-
 
 142 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 mon hangman, and himfelf to lofe his ears. His 
 trial is now extant. 
 
 THE Italians are far from attempting to caft a 
 blemifh on the opera, or to excommunicate Signior 
 Senefino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to 
 myfelf, I could prefume to wifh that the magifrrates 
 would fupprefs I know not what contemptible 
 piece?, written againft the ftage. For when the 
 English and Italians hear, that we brand with the 
 greateft mark of infamy an art in which we excel; 
 that we excommunicate perfons who receive fa- 
 laries from the king; that we condemn as impious 
 a fpeftacle exhibited in convents and monafleries ; 
 that we difhonour (ports in which Lewis the four- 
 teenth, and Lewis the fifteenth performed as aftors: 
 that we give the title of the devil's works, to pieces 
 \vhich are received by magiftrates of the moil 
 fevere character, and reprefented before a virtuous 
 queen ; when, I fay, foreigners are told of this in- 
 folent conduct, this contempt for the royal authori- 
 ty, and this Gothic rufticity which fome prefume 
 to call Chriftian feverity, what an idea mufr. they 
 entertain of our nation ! And how will it be poflible 
 for them to conceive, either that our laws give a 
 fancYion to an art which is declared infamous, or 
 that fome perfons dare to (lamp with infamy an art 
 which receives a fancYion from the laws, is rewarded 
 by kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greateft 
 men, and admired by whole nations! And that fa- 
 ther Le Brun's impertinent libel againft the ftage, 
 is feen in a bockfeller's fhop, ftanding the very 
 next to the immortal labours of Racine, of Corneille, 
 "of ?Ioliere, etc 1
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 143 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, AND OTHER 
 ACADEMIES. 
 
 THE EnglHh had an Academy of Sciences many 
 years before us : but then it is not under fuch pru- 
 dent regulations as ours: the only reafon of which 
 very poilibly is, becaufe it was founded before the 
 Academy of Paris ; for had it been founded after, 
 it would very probably have adopted fome of the 
 fage laws of the former, and improved upon o- 
 thers. 
 
 Two things, and thofe the moft efTential to man, 
 are wanting in the Royal Society of London, I mean 
 rewards and laws. A feat in the Academy at Paris 
 is a fmall, but fecure fortune to a Geometrician or 
 a Chemift ; x but this is fo far from being the cafe 
 at London, that the feveral members of the Royal 
 Society are at a continual, though indeed fmall ex- 
 pence. Any man in England who declares him- 
 felf a lover of the mathematics and natural philofo- 
 phy, and exprefles an inclination to be a member 
 of the Royal Society, is immediately elected into 
 it f . But in France it is not enough that a man 
 who afpires to the honour of being a member of the 
 academy, and of receiving the royal ftipend, has .1 
 
 | The reader will call to mind that thefe letters were writ- 
 ten about 1718 or 30, fince which time the names of the tc- 
 veral candidates are, by a law of the Royal Society, polle'd up 
 in it, in order that a choice may be made of fucb pcrfons on- 
 ly as are qualified to be members. The celebrated Mf. dc 
 fontenelle had the honour to pafs through this Ordeal. 
 IS
 
 love for the fciences; he muft at the fame time be 
 deeply flailed in them ; and is obliged to difpute 
 the feat with competitors who are fo much the 
 more formidable as they are fired by a principle of 
 glory, by intereft, by the difficulty itfelf, and by 
 that inflexibility of mind, which is generally found 
 in thofe who devote themfelves to that pertinaci- 
 ous ftudy, the mathematics. 
 
 THE Academy of Sciences is prudently confined 
 to the ftudy of nature, and, indeed, this is a field 
 fpacious enough for fifty or threefcore perfons to 
 range in. That of London mixes indifcriminately 
 literature with phyfics: but methinks the founding 
 an academy merely for the polite arts is more ju- 
 dicious, as it prevents confufion, and the joining, 
 in fome meafure, of heterogeneals, fuch as a dif- 
 fertation on the head-drefles of the Roman ladies, 
 with an hundred or more new curves. 
 
 As there is very little order and regularity in 
 the Royal Society, and not the leaft encourage- 
 ment; and that the academy of Paris is on a quite 
 different foot, it is no wonder that our tranfacli- 
 ons are drawn up in a more juft and beautiful 
 manner than thofe of the Englifh. Soldiers who 
 are under a regular difcipline, and befides well paid, 
 mud neceflarily, at laft, perform more glorious at- 
 chievements than others who are mere voluntiers. 
 It muft indeed be confefled that the Royal Society 
 bos ft their Newton, but then he did not owe his 
 knowlege and difcoveries to that body; fo far from 
 h, that the latter were intelligible to very few of 
 his fellow-members. A genius like that of Sir Ifaac 
 belonged to all the academies in the world, becaufe 
 all had a thoufand things to learn of him.
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 145 
 
 THE celebrated Dean Swift formed a defign, in 
 the latter end of the late Queen's reign, to found 
 an academy for the Englifh. tongue upon the mo- 
 del of that of the French. This project was pro- 
 moted by the late earl of Oxford, lord high trea- 
 furer, and much more by the lord Bolingbroke, 
 fecretary of ftate, who had the happy talent of 
 fpeaking without premeditation in the parliament- 
 houfe, with as much purity as dean Swift writ in 
 his clofet, and who would have been the ornament 
 and protector of thar. academy. Thofe only would 
 have been chofen members of it, whofe works 
 will laft as long as the Englim tongue, fuch as 
 dean Swift, Mr. Prior, whom we faw here invert- 
 ed with a public character, and whofe fame in 
 England is equal to that of La Fontaine in France; 
 Mr. Pope the Englifn Boileau, Mr. Corrgreve who 
 may be called their Moliere, and feveral other e- 
 minent perfons whofe names I have forgot; all 
 thefe would have raifed the glory of that body to a 
 great height, even in its infancy. But queen Anne 
 being fnacched fuddenly from the world, the Whigs 
 were refolved to ruin the protectors of the intend- 
 ed academy, a circumftance that was of the molt 
 fatal confequence to polite literature. The mem- 
 bers of this academy would have had a very great 
 advantage over thofe who firft formed that of the 
 French ; for Swift, * Prior, Congreve, Dryden, 
 Pope, Addifon, etc. had fixed the Englim tongue 
 by their writings ; whereas Chapelain, Colletet, 
 CaflTaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, our firft acade- 
 micians, were a difgrace to their country ; and fo 
 much ridicule is now attached to their very names, 
 that if an author of fome genius in this age had 
 N- 2
 
 146 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 the misfortune to be called Ghapelain or Cotin, he 
 would be under a neceffity of changing his name. 
 
 ONE circumftance, to which the Englilh academy 
 fhould efpecially have attended, is, to have pre- 
 icribed to themfelves occupations of a quite dif- 
 ferent kind from thofe with which our academici- 
 ans amufe themfelves. A wit of this country 
 aficed me for the Memoirs of the French academy. 
 I anfwered, they have no memoirs, but have printed 
 , threefcore or fourfcore volumes in quarto of com- 
 pliments. The gentleman perufed one or two of 
 them, but without being able to underftand the 
 flyle in which they were written, though he un- 
 derftood all our good authors perfectly. All, fay$ 
 he, I fee in thefe elegant difcourfes is, that the 
 member elecl: having affured the audience that his. 
 predecerTor was a great man, thr-t cardinal Riche- 
 lieu was a very great man, that the chancellor Se- 
 guier was a pretty great man ; that Lewis the four- 
 teenth was a more than great man, the director 
 anfwers in the very fame ftrain, and adds, that the 
 member eleft may alfo be a fort of great man, and 
 that himfelf, in quality of director, muft ajfo have 
 fome mare in this greatnefs. 
 
 THE caufe why all thefe academical difcourfes 
 have unhappily done fo little honour to this body 
 is evident enough. Vlllum eji tetnporis pctius 
 quam hcmims. The fault is owing to the age 
 rather than to particular perfons. It grew up in- 
 ienfibly into a cuftorn, for every academician to 
 repeat thefe elogiums at his reception ; it was laid 
 down as a kind of law, that the public mould be 
 indulged from time to time the fallen fatisfacYton 
 of yawning over thefe productions. If the reafoa
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION. 147 
 
 fhould afterwards be fought, why the greateft ge- 
 niufes who have been incorporated into that body 
 have fometimes made the worft fpeeches ; I anfwer, 
 that it is wholly owing to a ftrong propenfion, the 
 gentleman in queftion had to fhine, and to dii- 
 play a thread-bare, worn-out fubjeft in a new and 
 uncommon light. The neceffity of faying fome- 
 thing, the perplexity of having nothing to fay, 
 and a defire of being witty, are three circumftan- 
 ces which alone are capable of making even the 
 greateft writer ridiculous. Thefe gentlemen, not 
 being able to ftrike out any new thoughts, hunted 
 after a new play of 'words, and delivered them- 
 felves without thinking at all; in like manner as 
 people who fhould feem to chew \vith great eager- 
 nefs, and make as though they were eating, at the 
 fame time that they were juft ftarved. 
 
 IT is a law in the French academy, to publifh 
 all thofe difcourfes by which only they are known, 
 but they fhould rather make a law never to print 
 any of them. 
 
 BUT the academy of the Belles Lettres have a 
 more prudent and more ufe.ful objeft, which is, to 
 prefent the public with a collection of tranfaftions 
 that abound with curious refearches and critiques. 
 Thefe tranfaftions are already cfteemed by foreign- 
 ers ; and it were only to be wiihed, that fome fub- 
 jecls in them had been.more thoroughly examined, 
 and that others had not been treated at all. As 
 for inftance, we (hould have been very well fatisfied, 
 had they omitted I-know-net-,vhat differtation on 
 the prerogative of the right hand over the left ; 
 and- fome others, which, though not published un-> 
 N 3-
 
 148 LETTERS CONCERNING 
 
 der fo ridiculous a title, are yet written on fub- 
 jects that are almoft as frivolous and filly. 
 
 THE academy of fciences, in fuch of their re- 
 fearches as are of a more difficult kind and a more 
 ienlible ufe, embrace the knowlege of nature and 
 the improvements of the arts. "We may prefume 
 that fuch profound, fuch uninterrupted purfuits 
 as thefe, fuch exact calculations, fuch refined dif- 
 coveries, fuch extenfive and exalted views, will, at 
 laft, produce fomething that may prove of advantage 
 to the univerie. Hitherto, as we have obferved 
 together, the moft ufeful difcoveries have been 
 made in the moft barbarous times. One would 
 conclude, that the bufmefs of the moft enlightened 
 sges and the moft learned bodies, is, to argue and 
 debate on things which were invented by ignorant 
 people. We know exactly the angle which the 
 fail of a fhip is to make with the keel, in order to 
 its failing better \ and yet Columbus difcovered 
 America, without having the leaft idea of the pro- 
 perty of this angle : however I am far from infer- 
 ring from hence, that we are to confine ourfelves 
 merely to a blind practice, but happy it were, would 
 naturalifts and geometricians unite, as much as 
 potfible, the practice with the theory. 
 
 STRANGE, but fo it is, that thofe things which 
 reflect the greateft honour on the human mind, 
 are frequently of the leaft benefit to it ! A man 
 who underftands the four fundamental rules of 
 arithmetic, aided by a little good fenfe, (hall amafs 
 prodigious wealth in trade, (hall become a Sir Peter 
 Delme, a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heath- 
 cote, whilft a poor algebrnift fpends his whole life 
 in fearching for aftorjiihing properties and relations
 
 THE ENGLISH NATION, 
 
 in numbers, which at the fame time are of no 
 manner of ufe, and will not acquaint him with the 
 nature of exchanges. This is very nearly the cafe 
 with mod of the arts ; there is a certain point, be- 
 yond which, all refearches ferve to no other pur- 
 pofe, than merely to delight an inquifitive mind. 
 Thofe ingenious and ufelefs truths may be compar- 
 ed to ftars, which, by being placed at too great a 
 diftance, cannot afford us the lead light. 
 
 WITH regard to the French academy, how 
 great a fervice would they do to literature, to the 
 language, and the nation, if, inftead of publifhing 
 a fet of compliments annually, they would give us 
 new editions of the valuable works written in the 
 age of Lewis the fourteenth, purged from the fe- 
 veral errors of diction which are crept into them ! 
 There are many of thefe errors in Corneille and 
 Moliere, but thofe in La Fontaine are very nume- 
 rous. Such as could not be corrected, might at 
 leaft be pointed out. By this means, as all the 
 Europeans read thofe works, they would teach 
 them our language in its utmoft purity, which, by 
 that means, would be fixed to a lading ftandard ; 
 and valuable French books, being then printed at 
 the king's expence, would prove one of the mod 
 glorious monuments the nation could boad. I 
 have been told that Boileau formerly made this 
 propofal, and that it has fince been revived by a ^ 
 gentleman eminent for his genius, his fine fenfe, 
 and juft tade for criticifm ; but this thought has 
 met with the fate of many other ufeful projects, of 
 being applauded and neglected. 
 
 J L* Abbe de Rothelin of the French academy. 
 
 THE END.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 ACADEMY. Defign for eflablifhing an academy, for 
 the improvement of the Englifli tongue, p. 145. 
 Reafons why that defign was laid afide, ibid. Re- 
 flections on the French academy, and on that of the 
 fciences, 147, 148, and of the advantages which 
 might accrue from the French academy in France, 
 148, 149. 
 
 Addifon (Mr.) A confiderable fault in his beautiful tra- 
 gedy of Cato, in. The high efteem in which his 
 writings are held in England, 139. 
 
 Ages (barbarous.) The moft ufeful inventions have 
 been difcovered in them, 148. 
 
 Anaxagoras. His opinion concerning the nature of the 
 foul, 61. 
 
 Antonio. A ridiculous character in one of Otway's 
 plays, 106. 
 
 Argonauts. Sir Ifaac Newton fixes the time of thefr 
 expedition, 103. 
 
 Ariftotle. The only reafbn why he had fo many 
 commentators was, becaufe he was unintelligible, 
 62. 
 
 Aftronomy. The ufe Sir Ifaac Newton made of this 
 fcience in rectifying chronology, 100. 
 
 Attraction. Sir Ifaac Newton borrowed his fyftem of 
 attraction from the Lord Bacon, 58. Explication 
 of that fyftem, 80, 81. Defence of the term at- 
 traction, 8789. 
 
 B. 
 
 BACON (Lord.) His character and elogium, $4, etc. 
 Curious reflections on bis philorophical difcoveries
 
 INDEX. 
 
 and his works, 5659. His hiftory of Henr/ 
 VII. cenfured, $9. 
 
 Baptifm. Idea which the Quakers entertain of that in 
 dilution, 46. 
 
 Barclay (Robert.) Author of the Apology for the Qua- 
 kers, a work in great efteem, 7. prefents it to King 
 Charles II. 16. 
 
 Baftille. Sir John Vanbrugh being in France was in> 
 prifoned in the Baftilie, without knowing why, 117. 
 
 Bernard (St.) The Cingv.hr opinion of this father with 
 regard to the ftate of the foul after death, 62. 
 
 Bernouilli. Whether he invented the integral calculati- 
 on, 97. 
 
 Bodies. Caufe of their denfity difcovered by Sir Ifaac 
 Newton, 92. 
 
 Bolingbroke (Vifcount.) Confidered as one of the de- 
 fenders of the church of England, 26. An ingeni- 
 ous and noble anfwer of that Lord, relating to th 
 Duke of Marlborough, in the opposite party, 56, 
 
 Brounker (Lord). Squared the hyperbola, 96. 
 
 C. 
 
 CHARTA MAGNA. A famous editf which the En- 
 glim look upon as the foundation of their liberties, 
 43. Examination of that charter, 43 45. 
 
 Chinefe. The practice of inoculation has been among 
 that people above two hundred years, 53. 
 
 Chronology. The new difcoveries Sir Ifaac Newton 
 made in that fcience, 98. Principles on which he 
 eftablifhed them, 99 104. 
 
 Gibber (Mr.) An Englifh poet, and an excellent come- 
 dian, 118. 
 
 Circaffians. The inoculation of the fmall pox invented 
 by that people. Reafons why this cuftom is pracYif- 
 ed by them, 48 51. 
 
 Clarke (Dr.) A famous divine. A ftickler for Socini- 
 anifm, 33. His character, ibid. His adherence to that 
 icu of people though prejudicial to his fortune, ibid.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clergy. Their authority in England, 26, 27. Their 
 morals better than thofe of the French clergy, 27. 
 Moll Englifh clergymen are pedants, and not very 
 amiable in fociety, 28. They fuddle therafelves, 
 \vhich gives no offence, ibid. 
 Colours. Different colours of the rays of light, fixed 
 
 by Sir Ifaac Newton, 91, etc. 
 
 Comedies. The Englifh have fome very beautiful ones, 
 but to tafte them, a reader muft underhand the 
 tongue, they being very much disfigured in a tran- 
 flat ion, 1 1 8. 
 
 Comens . Explained by Sir Ifaac Newton, 8j. Opi- 
 nion of fome other philofophers, 85, 86. 
 Commerce. Flouriming ftate of it in England, 47, 
 etc. Noble duplicity of the rich merchants in Lon- 
 don, 48. 
 Commons (hoofe of). Its original is very obfcure, 43. 
 
 How its authority was increafed, 44. 
 Congreve. A famous Englifh poet. Author of fome 
 excellent comedies. His character, 117. His dif- 
 conrfe in a vifit which Mr. de Voltaire paid him, 
 ibid. 
 
 Courayer (father). A learned French monk. Has 
 written on the validity of Englifh ordinations. O- 
 pinion entertained of his work in France, and in 
 England, 27. Of no advantage to the Englifh, nor 
 to the author, ibid. 
 
 Courtiers (French). Their deities, 120, 121. 
 Cromwell (Oliver). Perfecutes the Quakers, becaufe 
 their religion would not permit them to fight, 15. 
 
 " D. 
 
 DELME (Sir Peter). A rich Englifh merchant, owes 
 his riches to his merit, 448. 
 
 Des Cartes. His character. Epitome of his life, judg- 
 ment on his talents, on his works, and his progrefs 
 in philofophy, geometry, etc. 7276. Compar-
 
 ; I N D E X. 
 
 ed to Sir Ifaac Newton, 77. Sir Ifaac deftroyed 
 moft of his principles, 79. 
 
 Difference. A remarkable one between tragedy and 
 comedy, 119. 
 
 Divines. A fett of men whofe character is not very a- 
 miable, and who do not confine themfelves enough 
 to the rules of their profeflion, 6$. Much more dan- 
 gerous to mankind than philosophers, 69. 
 
 Domines. (Antonio de). Firlt explains the caufes of 
 the rainbow, 90. 
 
 Dryden. An excellent Englifh poet. His character, 
 109. Translation of fome beautiful lines of his, 
 ibid. 
 
 E. 
 
 ECOLE DES FEMMES (fchool for married women). 
 A comedy of Moliere imitated by Wycherley, and 
 intitled by him The country wife, 117. 
 
 Effiat (Marquis of). An ingenious compliment made 
 by that nobleman to the lord Bacon, 55. 
 
 England. Is properly the country of fectarifts, 2f. 
 
 Englifh Tongue. A man muft underftand it to judge 
 of the merit of the writers in that language, 118. 
 
 Enthufiafm. Difficult to convince an enthufiad by ra- 
 tional arguments, 6. 
 
 Epitaph of Sir John Vanbrugh, 116. 
 
 Error of the Englifh with regard to the meafure of the 
 earth, rectified by Sir Ifaac Newton, 82. 
 
 Eflence. That of matter, according to Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton, does not confift merely in extenfion ; and that 
 of the foul is not Thought, according to Mr. Locke. 
 Both differ in opinion from Des Cartes, 71. 
 
 Eugene (Prince). Borrows five millions from fome En- 
 glim merchants, 47, 48. 
 
 Exchange (Royal). A noble idea of it, 39, 40.
 
 N 7 D E X. 
 
 F. 
 
 FLEETS. The Englifh, in 1725, had three power- 
 Ail ones at the fame time in different parts of the 
 world, 47. 
 
 Fontenelle (Mr. de). Wrote the elogium of Sir Ifnc 
 Newton. The Knglilh were difple.;fed at his com- 
 paring Des Cartes to that philofopher, 72, He has 
 attacked the fyftem of attratfion, 87. 
 
 Forrmt. The only Frenchman in D<:s Cartes's time 
 who unJerftood his geometry, 75. 
 
 Fox (George). Founder of quakerifm. His character 
 and adventures, 13 1 6. 
 
 France (civil wars of). As bloody and more fatal, than 
 thofe of England, 38. 
 
 French. The idea they have of England, 37, 38. 
 
 Frenchman. Des Cartes little efteerned by feveral of the 
 F.ngliih, merely bccaufe he was a Frenchman, 72^ 
 
 Froncine. A natural daughter of Des Cartes, 72. 
 
 K 
 
 G. 
 
 GALILEO. Tmprifoned in the inquifition for having 
 
 demonrtrated the earth's motion, 74. 
 Generations. The proportion of their duration with 
 
 that of the reign of Kings, 99, 100. 
 Geometry (Infinites in) Sublime difcoveries made by 
 
 Sir Ifaac Newton in that fcience, 96, etc. 
 Gordon (Mr.) a very ingenious Knglifli writer, known 
 
 by (everal works, 136. 
 Great men. Anfwer to {he queftion, who is the rc:\r- 
 
 eft man that ever lived ? 54. 
 Government. Various revolutions in government in 
 
 England, 40 43. !n what manner fubfidies are 
 
 levied in that country, 45. 
 
 O
 
 INDEX. 
 
 H. 
 
 HALLEY (Dr.) His opinion with regard to the co- 
 met in 1680. 8j. 
 
 Hatred (reciprocal). Of the Epifcoparians, and Prefby- 
 terians in England, much like that of the Janfenifts 
 and Jefuits, but with this difference, that the form- 
 er obfcrve a better decorum, 30. 
 
 Hiftorians. The Englifh wanting in good ones, 136. 
 
 Holland. Des Cartes was perfecuted in that country, 
 becaufe no one understood his philofophy, 73. 
 
 Holland (North). Des Cartes withdrew to it, in order 
 to cultivate his philofophy, 73. 
 
 Hopkins (Sir Richard.) The prodigious advantages he 
 reaped by arithmetic, 148. 
 
 Hyperbola. Squared by Lord Brounker, 96. 
 
 Hypparchus. A Greek philofopher. His agronomical 
 obfervations, 101. 
 
 Hudibras. A famous poem written by Butler. Judg- 
 ment of that work, 131, 132. 
 
 t 
 
 IMPULSION. A term as little understood in philofo- 
 phy as that of attraction, 87. 
 
 Infinites in Geometry. Carried by Sir Ifaac Newton to 
 a wonderful length, 96 98. 
 
 Inoculation. An artificial method of communicating the 
 fmall pox, firft brought from Afia. Origin of this 
 invention ; curious relation how it was firfl intro- 
 duced in England, 48 52. Effect it had in that 
 country, 52. Great benefit it might p'roduce in o- 
 ther countries, efpecially in France, 53. The Chi- 
 nefe are faid to have practifed it for a long courfe of 
 years, ibid. 
 
 Inventions. Several great men have disputed for the 
 honour of various inventions, 98.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 L. 
 
 LEIBNITZ. Whether he invented Fluxions, 97. 
 
 Lewenhoeck. His difpute with Hartfoecher, 98. 
 
 Liberty. Idolized fo much by the Englifh, that they 
 are even jealous of that of other nations, 37. Foun- 
 dation of their liberties, 43. Thefe examined, 
 
 44, 45' 
 Locke (Mr.) His characler, 61. Idea of his philofo- 
 
 phy, 63 65. He is accufed of a defign to deftroy 
 
 religion, 65. 
 Longitude. Reward promifcd in England to the man 
 
 who (hall difco^er it, 138. 
 Lully, Defpifed by the ignorant muficians in Italy, 
 
 but admired by thofe of the greateft abilities, nS. 
 
 M. 
 
 MACHINES. Whether animals are mere machines ? 
 The author's argument again!! that opinion, 68. 
 
 Majefty. The people of England have the epithet 
 majefty beftowed upon them by one of their mem- 
 bers of parliament, 35. 
 
 Mallebranche (Father). Efteemed by the Quakers, nnd 
 considered by them as a favourer of their principle's, 12. 
 
 Matter. The efFence of matter, according to Sir ifaac 
 "Newton, confifts in folidity and extenfion, 71. 
 
 Meafure. That of the Circumference of the terreflrial 
 globe, 82. 
 
 Merchants (Englifh.) Their riches and generofity, 47. 
 The greateft noblemen do not think trade deroga- 
 tory to their titles. Examples of this, 48. 
 
 Milton. A daughter of that immortal poet relieved 
 from the moft extreme mifery by the liberality of 
 Queen Caroline, 51. 
 
 Mifantrope of Moliere. Imitated by Wycherley in his 
 
 Comedy called the Plain-Dealer, 1 13. 
 Montague (Lady Wortley.) The Englifh are obliged 
 
 O 2
 
 INDEX. 
 
 to that fedy for introducing the practice of inocula- 
 tion among them. Her elogium, 51. 
 Muralt (Mr. de.) In his Letters on the Englifh and 
 French nations, did not expatiate enough on Engliflx 
 comedies, 113. 
 
 N. 
 
 NEWTON (Sirlfaac.) A favourer of the Socinian 
 principles, 33. In the opinion of fome people, the 
 greateft man that ever lived, 54. His philoibphy 
 quite different from that of Des Cartes, 70, yr. 
 The moil curious and moft confiderable of his princi- 
 ples explained, from 78, to 104. He has obtained a 
 kind of unjverfal monarchy over the fciences, 104, 
 
 O. 
 
 GLDFIELD. (Mrs.) A celebrated Englifh aclrefs. Her 
 
 very honourable interment, 140. 
 Optics. Sir Ifaac Newton's wonderful difcoveries in 
 
 that fcience, 90 95. His method on this occafi- 
 
 on, ibid. . 
 
 Ordinations (Englifh.) Defended by father Courayer. 
 
 The obligations the Rnglifh hav? to him for hi$ 
 
 Work, 27. 
 Otway. RiJiruloufly imitated fome of Shnkefpeare's 
 
 f.:y!ts, 106. 
 Oxford (hte Earl of.) Confidered as the defender of 
 
 the church of Englnnd, 29. Favours the defign of 
 
 founding an academy, 145. 
 
 P. 
 
 PARLIAMENT (of Great Britain.) Compared with 
 the ancient Romans, 35. The parallel examined, 36. 
 RefiecTions on the Englifh liberties and. the authority 
 of parliaments, 37 39. 
 
 Peers, The bulwark of the Englim monarchs, againft
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the formidable authority of the commons, 44. Few 
 
 peers have eftates in thofe countries whence they 
 
 take their titles, ibid. 
 Pen (William.) Head of the Quakers in America, 18. 
 
 Penfilvania fo called from him, 21 His travels and 
 
 adventures. Amiable government fettled by him a- 
 
 mong his followers, ibid. His death. Accufed of 
 
 being a Jefuit. Juftifies himfelf, 22, 23. 
 Philofophy. The prodigious improvements Lord Ba- 
 
 con made in it, 56. As alfo Des Cartes, 77, And 
 
 Sir Ifaac Newton, 75. 
 Picart (Mr.) The advantage his calculation was of to 
 
 Sir Ifaac Newton's fyfcem, 82. 
 Pope (Mr.) One of the greateft poets of the Englifli 
 
 nation. His character, 133. Tranflation of fome 
 
 beautiful lines from his Rape of the Lock, 134, 
 
 He is the Englim Boileau, 145. The high regard 
 
 mown him in England, 139. 
 Popes. AntientJy tyrants in England, 41. 
 Pox (fmalL) Given in inoculation. Curious account 
 
 of that praclice, 48 52. Havoc it made in Paris 
 
 in 1723, 53. 
 Prefbyterianjfm. The moft confidmble feft after the 
 
 church of England, 29. 
 Prefbyterians. Character of thofe in England, 30. 
 
 Difference between the epifcopal clergy, and thofe 
 
 of the church of Scotland, ibid. 
 Prior (Mr.) An Englim poet of dirtinguifhed merit 
 
 131. Has a very conCderable employment beftowed 
 upon him, 139. 
 
 Prynne (Mr.) A Fanatic, 141. His arguments agalnft 
 public fpe&acles, ibid. 
 
 QUAKERS. Conversation of the author with an old 
 quaker of very good fenfe, 4, etc. Opinion of the 
 quakers with regard to baptifm, 46. 1 heir meet- 
 ings, 10. Have neither pncfts nor minifters, II.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Origin of the Quakers, 13, etc. Perfecuted upon' the 
 firft eftablifhment of their doctrine, 14, 15. They 
 fettle in America and particularly in Penfilvania, 20, 
 21. Their number decreafes daily in England. 
 Reafons of it, 23. 
 
 Quality (Englifh). Fond of, and cherifh, the polite 
 arts, 129, 130. 
 
 Queen Caroline. Her elogium. She protects the 
 faiences, 51. 
 
 R. 
 
 RAYS. Difference in the rays of which light is com- 
 pofed, according to Sir Ifaac Newton's fyftem, 9 i, 
 92. 
 
 Religions. Plurality of them very necefFary, and of ad- 
 vantage to the happinefs and profperity of the En- 
 glim, 31. 
 
 Retz (Cardinal de). His chancier, 38. 
 
 Revenue (yearly). A great number of commoners in 
 England have two hundred thoufand livres per an- 
 num, 46. 
 
 Revolution. A fingular one of the earth newly difco- 
 vered, 100. 
 
 Rochefter (Earl of). Hi&elogium, 123. A beautiful 
 padage from his Satire againrt man, imitated by onr 
 author, 124. 
 
 Romans. A parallel between that people and the En> 
 glifh, 35, 36. 
 
 Rufcomb. A town in Berkfhire, where William Pen 
 died, 23. 
 
 S. 
 
 SECTS. England properly the country of them, 2f. 
 Philofophers will never form religious fects, becaufe 
 they are not enthufiaftically inclined, 69. 
 
 Shakefpeare. Ther fitft poet who made the Englifii 
 theatre confpicuous, 105. His character, ibid. The
 
 INDEX. 
 
 high efteem the Englifli have for his writings pro- 
 ductive of ill effects, 106. Part of the famous fpeech 
 in Hamlet tranilated into French, 108. 
 
 Socinians. Who compofe that feft in England, 32. Sir 
 Ifaac Newton and Dr. Clarke favoured their opini- 
 ons, 33. Reflections on the (tare of that feel, 34. 
 
 Sorin (Mr.) Cenfures the fyflem of attraction, 87. 
 
 Soubife (Prince of). Dies of the fmall-pox in the flow- 
 .er of his youih, $2. 
 
 Soul. The ancients ignorant of the nature of the foul. 
 Opinions of the fathers, of the fchoolmen, and of 
 the modern philofophers, 6 1 63. 
 
 Spectacles (Public (hews). Forbid on Sundays in Eng- 
 land, and alfo cards and all other kinds of divert- 
 ons, 30. 
 
 Steel (Sir Richard). Author of feveral fine comedies, 1 1$. 
 
 Subfidies. How levied in Great-Britain, 54, jj. 
 
 Swift (Dean). His character and eiogiura. Compared 
 to Rabelais, 132, 133. 
 
 T. 
 
 TELESCOPES. One of a new kind invented by Sir 
 Ifaac Newton, 95. 
 
 Theatres. The Englifli had thefe before the French, ioj. 
 
 Thee and Thou. The Quakers always ufe thofe par- 
 ticles in fpeaking. Juftification of that form of 
 fpeech, 7. Example of a difcourfe of this kind ad- 
 drefled to Charles II. 17. 
 
 Thuanus. A judicious author even in his ftyle, 59. 
 
 Tories. A powerful party in England, the counter-part 
 to the Whigs, 26, 27. 
 
 Tragedies. Reflexions on the flage of tragedy in Eng- 
 land, no, 112. 
 
 Tranflation. Several paflages.of the nioft famous Eng- 
 lifli poets tranflned bv Mr. de Voltaire. One of 
 Shakefpeare, joS, Of Dry den, no. of the Earl of 
 Rochefter, 121,124. Of Waller, 128. Of Mr.
 
 ^ INDEX. 
 
 Pope, 134. Of the Lord , 121. Qualities ne- 
 
 cellary to form a good translation, 109. 
 
 V. 
 
 VANBRUGH (Sir John). Author of fevera! good co- 
 medies, and an architect, His character and epitaph, 
 Il6. Was imprifoned in the Buftile, 117, 
 
 Villequier (Duke of). Dies in the flower of his youth, 
 52. 
 
 Voitnre, Judgment on that author, 126, 127. 
 
 W. 
 
 "WALLER (Mr.) Ao Englifli poet. His character 
 and elogium, 126, 127. Tranflation of part of his 
 poem on Cromwell's death, 128. His ingenious 
 reply to Charles II. 129. 
 
 Wallis (Dr.) His progrefs in infinites, 96. 
 
 "Warbeck (Perkin). A famous impoitor in the reign of 
 Henry VII. 59. 
 
 Whigs. A considerable party in England, opponents 
 of the Tories, 26, 27. 
 
 ^.Vhifton (Mr.) His notion with regard to the deluge, 
 86. 
 
 Wycherley (Mr.) Author of (everal excellent come- 
 dif-s. A great imitator of Moliere, particularly in 
 his Plain Dealer, 113. Plot of that comedy, and 
 of another intitled the Country Wife, 114 116. 
 This poet in great favour with the celebrated mi- 
 ftrcfs of Charles II. 113. 
 
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