and placed it on an immovable basis. The whole material universe,' as Sir David Brewster says, 'was spread out before him; the sun with all his attending planets, the planets with all their satellites, the comets wheeling in their eccentric orbits, and the system of the fixed stars stretching to the remotest limits of space.' What must have been the sensations of Newton when all these varied movements of the heavenly bodies were thus presented to his mind and presented, let us remember, as the result of that law which he had himself discovered! The situation of Columbus when, after his long voyage, he first descried the shores of the new world he had so adventurously sailed to explore, was one of moral and intellectual grandeur. So was the position of Milton, when old, and blind, and poor, he had realised the dream of his youth, completed his great epic, and sent it forth on its voyage of immortality. But the situation of Newton was one still more transcendent. His feelings were perhaps the most strange-the most sublime-ever permitted to mortality. He had laid his hand on the key of Nature's secrets, and unlocked a mighty mystery-a mystery hidden from mankind for countless ages, and at that moment known only to himself. And in his joy at this vast discovery there was no room for fear or regret. The conqueror or explorer of a new country may sigh to think what sin and suffering may be introduced with civilisation, supplanting the ignorant innocence of the natives; but in this case nothing could result but fresh and astounding proofs of that divine wisdom and law of order which form the harmony of the universe.

gentleman, however, was, that, of the whole mass, nothing but a work on the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms was adapted for publication. That treatise accordingly appeared; and, contrary to Dr Pellet's opinion, the Observations upon the Prophecies, already mentioned, were likewise sent to the press. An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (John, v. 7, and 1 Tim. iii. 16), also from the pen of Sir Isaac, first appeared in a perfect form in Dr Horsley's edition of his works in 1779. The timidity, no less than the profound humility, of this great man led him to shrink from any publication likely to lead to controversy, and perhaps the only defect in his noble nature was this morbidly sensitive and somewhat suspicious temperament. We subjoin a specimen of his remarks on

The Prophetic Language.

For understanding the prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly the whole world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people; or so much of it as world signifies the analogous things in this. For the is considered in the prophecy. And the things in that heavens, and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with the things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades, or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. Whence, The work in which Newton unfolded his simple ascending towards heaven, and descending to the earth, but sublime system was written in Latin, and are put for rising and falling in power and honour; appeared in 1687, under the title of Philosophiae rising out of the earth or waters, and falling into them, Naturalis Principia Mathematica. To Newton we for the rising up to any dignity, or dominion, out of owe likewise extensive discoveries in optics, by the inferior state of the people, or falling down from which the aspect of that science was so entirely the same into that inferior state; descending into the changed, that he may justly be termed its founder. lower parts of the earth, for descending to a very low He was the first to conceive and demonstrate the of the dust, for being in a weak and low condition; and unhappy state; speaking with a faint voice out divisibility of light into rays of seven different moving from one place to another, for translation colours, and possessing different degrees of refran- from one office, dignity, or dominion to another; great gibility. After pursuing his optical investigations earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, for during a period of thirty years, he gave to the the shaking of dominions, so as to distract or overthrow world, in 1704, a detailed account of his discoveries them; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the in an admirable work entitled Optics: or a Treatise passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end of the Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of of the world, for the rise and reign of the body politic Light. Besides these, he published various pro-signified thereby. found mathematical works, which it is unnecessary In the heavens, the sun and moon are, by the interhere to enumerate. Like his illustrious contemporaries, Boyle, Barrow, and Locke, this eminent man devoted much attention to theology as well as to natural science. The prophetic books of Scripture were those which he chiefly investigated; and to his great interest in these studies we owe the composition of his Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John, published after his death. Among his manuscripts were found many other theological pieces, mostly on such subjects as the Prophetic Style, the Host of Heaven, the Revelations, the Temple of Solomon, the Sanctuary, the Working of the Mystery of Iniquity, and the Contest between the Host of Heaven and the Transgressors of the Covenant. The whole manuscripts left by Sir Isaac were perused by Dr Pellet, by agreement with the executors, with the view of publishing such as were thought fit for the press; the report of that

preters of dreams, put for the persons of kings and queens. But in sacred prophecy, which regards not race of kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world single persons, the sun is put for the whole species and politic, shining with regal power and glory; the moon for the body of the common people, considered as the king's wife; the stars for subordinate princes and great men, or for bishops and rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness, and ignorance; darkening, smiting, or setting of the sun, moon, and stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the darkness; darkening the sun, turning the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, for the same; new moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic.

Fire and meteors refer to both heaven and earth, and signify as follows: Burning anything with fire, is put for the consuming thereof by war; a conflagration of the earth, or turning a country into a lake of fire, for

his education at Hereford and Oxford, and repaired to London in quest of employment. He was there appointed steward to a patent-glass manufactory, in which capacity he went abroad, to procure materials and engage workmen. In the course of his travels, which lasted three years, he visited many commercial towns in Holland, Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy; and, being possessed of an acute and inquiring mind, laid up a store of useful observations on men and manners, besides acquiring an extensive knowledge of modern languages. His connection with the glass-company soon after ceased, and he again visited France as the travelling companion of a young gentleman. After this he was sent to Spain (1622), as agent for the recovery of an English

is solemnly renewed every year in solemn procession by the Doge and all the Clarissimos, and a gold ring cast into the sea out of the great galeasse, called the Bucentoro, wherein the first ceremony was performed by the pope himself, above three hundred years since, and they say it is the self-same vessel still, though often put upon the careen and trimmed. This made me think on that famous ship at Athens; nay, I fell upon an abstracted notion in philosophy, and a speculation touching the body of man, which being in perpetual flux, and a kind of succession of decays, and consequently requiring, ever and anon, a restoration of what it loseth of the virtue of the former aliment, and what was converted after the third concoction into a blood and fleshy substance, which, as in all other sublunary bodies that have internal principles of heat, useth to transpire, breathe out, and waste away through invisible pores, by exercise, motion, and sleep, to make to consider whether our bodies may be said to be of room still for a supply of new nurriture: I fell, I say, like condition with this Bucentoro, which, though it be reputed still the same vessel, yet I believe there's not a foot of that timber remaining which it had upon the first dock, having been, as they tell me, so often planked and ribbed, caulked and pieced. In like manner, our bodies may be said to be daily repaired by new sustenance, which begets new blood, and consequently new spirits, new humours, and, I may say, new flesh; the old, by continual deperdition and insensible perspirations, evaporating still out of us, and giving way to fresh; so that I make a question whether, by reason of man may be said to be the same numerical body in of these perpetual reparations and accretions, the body his old age that he had in his manhood, or the same in his manhood that he had in his youth, the same in his youth that he carried about with him in his childhood,

vessel which had been seized in Sardinia on a charge of smuggling; but all hopes of obtaining redress being destroyed by the breaking off of Prince Charles's proposed marriage with the Infanta, he returned to England in 1624. His next office was that of secretary to Lord Scrope, as President of the North; and in 1627 he was chosen by the corporation of Richmond to be one of their representatives in parliament. Three years afterwards, he visited Copenhagen as secretary to the English ambassador. About the beginning of the Civil War, he was appointed one of the Clerks of Council; but being prodigally inclined,' according to Anthony à Wood, and therefore running much into debt,' he was imprisoned in the Fleet, by order of a committee of parliament. Here he remained till after the king's death, supporting himself by trans-or the same in his childhood which he wore first in the lating and composing a variety of works. At the Restoration, he became historiographer-royal, being the first who ever enjoyed that title; and he continued his literary avocations till his death in 1666. Of upwards of forty publications of this lively and sensible writer, none is now generally read except his Epistola Ho-Eliana, or Familiar Letters, which were published in four successive instalments, in 1645, 1647, 1650, and 1655. This work is considered to be the earliest specimen of epistolary literature in the language. The letters are dated from various places at home and abroad; and though some of them are supposed to have been composed from memory while the author was in the Fleet Prison, the greater number seem to bear sufficient internal evidence of having been written at the times and places indicated. His remarks on the leading events and characters of the time, as well as the description of what he saw in foreign countries, and the reflections with which his Letters abound, contribute to render the work one of permanent

interest and value.

Letter from Venice.

These wishes come to you from Venice, a place where there is nothing wanting that heart can wish; renowned Venice, the admired'st city in the world, a city that all Europe is bound unto, for she is her greatest rampart against that huge eastern tyrant, the Turk, by sea; else, I believe, he had overrun all Christendom by this time. Against him this city hath performed notable exploits, and not only against him, but divers others: she hath restored emperors to their thrones, and popes to their chairs, and with her galleys often preserved St Peter's bark from sinking: for which, by way of reward, one

womb. I make a doubt whether I had the same
identical, individually numerical body, when I carried
a calf-leather satchel to school in Hereford, as when I
wore a lambskin hood in Oxford; or whether I have
the same mass of blood in my veins, and the same flesh,
now in Venice, which I carried about me three years
since, up and down London streets, having, in lieu of
different viands. Now, the stomach is like a crucible,
beer and ale, drunk wine all this while, and fed upon
for it hath a chemical kind of virtue to transmute one
body into another, to transubstantiate fish and fruits
into flesh within and about us; but though it be question-
able whether I wear the same flesh which is fluxible, I
am sure my hair is not the same, for you may remember
I went flaxen-haired out of England, but you shall find
me returned with a very dark brown, which I impute
not only to the heat and air of those hot countries I
have eat my bread in, but to the quality and difference
of food: you will say that hair is but an excrementitious
thinks I hear thee say that this may be true only in the
thing, and makes not to this purpose; moreover, me-
blood and spirits, or such fluid parts, not in the solid
and heterogeneal parts. But I will press no further at
this time this philosophical notion, which the sight of
Bucentoro infused into me, for it hath already made me
exceed the bounds of a letter, and, I fear me, to trespass
too much upon your patience; I leave the further dis-
quisition of this point to your own contemplations, who
are a far riper philosopher than I, and have waded
deeper into and drunk more of Aristotle's well. But,
to conclude, though it be doubtful whether I carry
about me the same body or no in all points that I had
in England, I am well assured I bear still the same
mind, and therein I verify the old verse:

Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
The air, but not the mind, they change,
Who in outlandish countries range.

of his successors espoused her to the sea, which marriage For, what alterations soever happen in this microcosm,

in this little world, this small bulk and body of mine,
you may be confident that nothing shall alter my affec-
tions, specially towards you, but that I will persevere
still the same-the very same
J. H.
VENICE, 25th June, 1621.

Letter from Rome.

Touching the temporal government of Rome, and oppidan affairs, there is a prætor and some choice citizens, which sit in the Capitol. Among other pieces of policy, there is a synagogue of Jews permitted here— as in other places of Italy-under the pope's nose, but they go with a mark of distinction in their hats; they are tolerated for advantage of commerce, wherein the Jews are wonderful dexterous, though most of them be only brokers and Lombardeers; and they are held to be here as the cynic held women to be-malum necessarium. . . .

For point of power, the pope is able to put 50,000 men in the field, in case of necessity, besides his naval strength in galleys. We read how Paul III. sent Charles III. twelve thousand foot and five hundred horse. Pius V. sent a greater aid to Charles IX.; and for riches, besides the temporal dominions he hath in all the countries before named, the datany or despatching of bulls, the triennial subsidies, annats, and other ecclesiasI am now come to Rome, and Rome, they say, is tical rights, mount to an unknown sum; and it is every man's country; she is called Communis Patria, a common saying here, that as long as the pope can for every one that is within the compass of the Latin finger a pen, he can want no pence. Pius V. notwithChurch finds himself here, as it were, at home, and in standing his expenses in buildings, left four millions in his mother's house, in regard of interest in religion, the Castle of Saint Angelo in less than five years; more, which is the cause that for one native there be five I believe, than this Gregory XV. will, for he hath many strangers that sojourn in this city; and without any dis-nephews; and better is it to be the pope's nephew, than tinction or mark of strangeness, they come to preferments to be a favourite to any prince in Christendom. and offices, both in church and state, according to merit, which is more valued and sought after here than anywhere. But whereas I expected to have found Rome elevated upon seven hills, I met her rather spreading upon a flat, having humbled herself, since she was made a Christian, and descended from those hills to Campus Martius; with Trastevere, and the suburbs of Saint Peter, she hath yet in compass about fourteen miles, which is far short of that vast circuit she had in Claudius his time; for Vopiscus writes she was then of fifty miles' circumference, and she had five hundred thousand free citizens in a famous cense that was made, which, allowing but six to every family in women, children, and servants, came to three millions of souls; but she is now a wilderness in comparison of that number. The pope is grown to be a great temporal prince of late years, for the state of the church extends above three hundred miles in length, and two hundred miles in breadth; it contains Ferrara, Bologna, Romagnia, the Marquisate of Ancona, Umbria, Sabina, Perugia, with a part of Tuscany, the patrimony, Rome herself, and Latium. In these there are above fifty bishoprics; the pope hath also the duchy of Spoleto, and the exarchate of Ravenna; he hath the town of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples, and the country of Venissa, called Avignon, in France. He hath title also good enough to Naples itself; but, rather than offend his champion, the king of Spain, he is contented with a white mule, and purse of pistoles about the neck, which he receives every year for a heriot or homage, or what you will call it; he pretends also to be lord-paramount of Sicily, Urbia, Parma, and Masseran; of Norway, Ireland, and England, since King John did prostrate our crown at Pandulfo his legate's feet.

The state of the apostolic see here in Italy lieth 'twixt two seas, the Adriatic and the Tyrrhene, and it runs through the midst of Italy, which makes the pope powerful to do good or harm, and more capable than any other to be an umpire or an enemy. His authority being mixed 'twixt temporal and spiritual, disperseth itself into so many members, that a young man may grow old here before he can well understand the form of

government.

The consistory of cardinals meet but once a week, and once a week they solemnly wait all upon the pope. I am told there are now in Christendom but sixty-eight cardinals, whereof there are six cardinal bishops, fiftyone cardinal priests, and eleven cardinal deacons. The cardinal bishops attend and sit near the pope, when he celebrates any festival; the cardinal priests assist him at mass; and the cardinal deacons attire him. A cardinal is made by a short breve or writ from the pope in these words: Creamus te socium regibus, superiorem ducibus, et fratrem nostrum' ['We create thee a companion to kings, superior to dukes, and our brother']. If a cardinal bishop should be questioned for any offence, there must be twenty-four witnesses produced against him. The Bishop of Ostia hath most privilege of any other, for he consecrates and installs the pope, and goes always next to him. All these cardinals have the repute of princes, and besides other incomes, they have the annats of benefices to support their greatness.

Present Rome may be said to be but a monument of Rome past, when she was in that flourish that St Austin desired to see her in. She who tamed the world, tamed herself at last, and falling under her own weight, fell to be a prey to time; yet there is a providence seems to have a care of her still; for though her air be not so good, nor her circumjacent soil so kindly as it was, yet she hath wherewith to keep life and soul together still, by her ecclesiastical courts, which is the sole cause of her peopling now; so that it may be said, when the pope came to be her head, she was reduced to her first principles; for as a shepherd was founder, so a shepherd is still governor and preserver.

Description of the Wine Countries.

Greece, with all her islands, Italy, Spain, France, one part of four of Germany, Hungary, with divers countries thereabouts, all the islands in the Mediterranean and Atlantic sea, are wine-countries.

The most generous wines of Spain grow in the midland parts of the continent, and St Martin bears the bell, which is near the court. Now, as in Spain, so in all other wine-countries, one cannot pass a day's journey but he will find a differing race of wine; those kinds that our merchants carry over are those only that grow upon the sea-side, as Malagas, Sherries, Tents, and Alicants: of this last there's little comes over right; therefore the vintners make Tent-which is a name for all wines in Spain, except white-to supply the place of it. There is a gentle kind of white wine grows among the mountains of Galicia, but not of body enough to bear the sea, called Rabidavia. Portugal affords no wines worth the transporting.* They have an odd stone we call Yef, which they use to throw into their wines, which clarifieth it, and makes it more lasting. There's also a drink in Spain called Alosha, which they drink between meals in hot weather, and 'tis a hydromel made of water and honey; much of them take of our mead. In the court of Spain there's a German or two that brew beer; but for that ancient drink of Spain which Pliny speaks of, composed of flowers, the receipt thereof is utterly lost.

In Greece there are no wines that have bodies enough

The importation of wines from Portugal dates from the reign of Charles 11. In 1703, the Methuen Treaty was entered into with Portugal, binding England to receive her produce at a rate of one-third less than on that of France. Port then became the most important wine for British use. Since the reduction of duty on French wines, the consumption of port has greatly declined.

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