of whose fables, Absalom and Achitophel, Alexander's Feast, and several other pieces, written toward the close of the seventeenth century, are justly considered, notwithstanding some negligences, as the most masterly poetical compositions in our language. The same good taste extended itself to a sister art. Purcell, the celebrated author of the Orpheus Britannicus, set the principal lyric, and the airs in two of the dramatic pieces of Dryden, to music worthy of the poetry.

Dryden, during his latter years, also greatly excelled in prose; to which he gave an ease and energy, not to be found united in Clarendon or Temple, the two most celebrated prose writers of that age. Clarendon's words are well chosen and happily arranged; but his spirit, and even his sense, is frequently lost in the bewildering length of his periods. The style of Temple, though easy and flowing, wants force. The sermons, or Christian orations of archbishop Tillotson, have great merit, both in regard to style and matter. Dryden considered Tillotson as his master in prose composition,

The sciences made greater progress in England, during the course of the seventeenth century, than polite literature. Early in the reign of James I. sir Francis Bacon, who is justly considered, on account of the extent and variety of his talents, as one of the most extraordinary men that any nation ever produced, broke through the scholastic obscurity of the age, like the sun from beneath a cloud, and shewed mankind the necessity of thinking for themselves, in order to become truly learned. He began with taking a view of the various objects of human knowledge: he divided these objects into classes; he examined what was already known, in regard to each of them; and he drew up an immense catalogue of what yet remained to be discovered. He went even farther; he shewed the necessity of experimental physics, and of reasoning experimentally on moral subjects. If he did not greatly enlarge the bounds of any particular sci

ence

ence himself, he was no less usefully employed in breaking the fetters of false philosophy, and conducting the lovers of truth to the proper method of cultivating the whole circle of the sciences.

The liberal spirit of enquiry which Bacon had awakened, soon communicated itself to his countrymen. Harvey, by reasoning alone, without any mixture of accident, discovered the circulation of the blood; and he had also the happiness of establishing this capital discovery, during the reign of Charles I. on the most solid and convincing proofs. Posterity has added little to the arguments suggested by his industry and ingenuity.

Soon after the restoration, the Royal Society was founded; and its members, in a few years, made many important discoveries in mathematics and natural philosophy, in which Wilkins, Wallace, and Boyle, had a great share. Nor were the other branches of science neglected. Hobbes, already distinguished by his writings, continued to unfold the principles of policy and morals with a bold but impious freedom. He represents man as naturally cruel, unsocial, and unjust. His system, which was highly admired during the reign of Charles II. as it favours both tyranny and licentiousness, is now deservedly consigned to oblivion; but his language and his manner of reasoning are still held in estimation.

Shaftesbury, naturally of a benevolent temper, shocked with the debasing principles of Hobbes, and captivated with the generous visions of Plato, brought to light an enchanting system of morals which every friend to humanity would wish to be true, and what is no small matter toward its confirmation, if it has not always obtained the approbation of the wise, it has seldom failed to conciliate the assent of the good; who are generally willing to believe, that the Divinity has implanted in the human breast a sense of right and wrong, independent of religion or custom; and that virtue is naturally as pleasing to the heart of man, as beauty to his eye.

While

While Shaftesbury was conceiving that amiable theory of ethics, according to which beauty and good are united in the natural as well as in the moral world, which embroiders with brighter colours the robe of spring, and gives music to the autumnal blast; which reconciles man to the greatest calamities, from a conviction that all is ordered for the best, at the same time that it makes him enjoy with more sincere satisfaction the gifts of fortune, and the pleasures of society, Newton, leaving behind all former astronomers, surveyed more fully, and established by demonstration that harmonious system of the universe, which had been discovered by Copernicus; and Locke, no less wonderful in his walk, untwisted the chain of human ideas, and opened a vista into the mysterious regions of the mind.

The philosophy of Newton, all founded on experiment and demonstration, can never be sufficiently admired; and it particularly merits the attention of every gentleman, as an unacquaintance with the principle of gravitation, or with the theory of light and colours would be sufficient to stamp an indelible mark of ignorance on the most respectable character. But the discovery of Locke, though now familiar, that all our IDEAS are acquired by sensation and reflection, and consequently, that we brought none into the world with us, has had a more serious influence upon the opinions of mankind. It has not only rendered our reasonings concerning the operations of the human understanding more distinct; it has also induced us to reason concerning the nature of the mind itself, and its various powers and properties. In a word, it has served to introduce an universal system of scepticism, which has shaken every principle of religion and morals.

But the same philosophy which has unwisely called in question the divine origin of Christianity, and even the hinge on which it rests, the immortality of the soul; that philosophy which has endeavoured to cut off from man the hope of heaven, has happily contributed to render his earthly dwelling

as

as comfortable as possible. It has turned its researches, with an inquisitive eye, toward every object that can be made subservient to the ease, pleasure, or conveniency of life. Commerce and manufactures, government and police, have equally excited its attention. The arts, both useful and ornamental, have every where been disseminated over Europe, in consequence of this new manner of philosophising; and have all, unless we should perhaps except sculpture, been carried to a higher degree of perfection than in any former period in the history of the human race. Even here, however, an evil is discerned-and where may not evils, either real or imaginary, be found? Commerce and the arts are supposed to have introduced luxury and effeminacy; but a certain degree of luxury is necessary to give activity to a state: and philosophers have not yet ascertained where true refinement ends, and effeminacy, or vicious luxury, begins.

LETTER XX.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE AFFAIRS OF EUROPE, FROM THE PEACE OF RYSWICK TO THE GRAND ALLIANCE, IN 1701.

As we approach toward our own times, the materials of history grow daily more abundant; and consequently a nicer selection becomes necessary, in order to A. D. 1697. preserve the memory from fatigue. I shall therefore, endeavour to throw into shade all unproductive negociations and intrigues, as well as unimportant events, and to comprehend, under one view, the general transactions of Europe, during the ensuing busy period. Happily the negociations in regard to the Spanish succession, and the war in which so many of the great powers of the south and west afterward engaged, to prevent the union of the crowns of France and Spain under a prince of the house of Bourbon, are highly favourable to this design. In like manner, the

VOL. IV.

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affairs

affairs of the north and east are simplified, by the long and bloody contest between Charles XII. and Peter the Great; so that I hope to be able to bring forward, without confusion, the whole at once to the eye.

The first object, after the peace of Ryswick, which engaged the general attention of Europe, was the settlement of the Spanish succession. The declining health of Charles II. a prince who had long been in a languishing condition, and whose death was daily expected, gave new spirit to the intrigues of the competitors for his crown. These competitors were Lewis XIV. the emperor Leopold, and the elector of Bavaria. Lewis and the emperor were in the same degree of consanguinity to Charles, both being grandsons of Philip III. The dauphin and the emperor's eldest son Joseph, king of the Romans, had therefore a double claim, their mothers being two daughters of Philip IV. The right of birth was in the house of Bourbon, the king and his son the dauphin being both descended from the eldest daughters of Spain; but the Imperial family asserted, in support of their claim, beside the solemn and ratified renunciations of Lewis XIII. and XIV. of all title to the Spanish succession, the blood of Maximilian, the common parent of both branches of the house of Austria-the right of male representation. The elector of Bavaria claimed, as the husband of an archduchess, the only surviving child of the emperor Leopold, by the infanta Margaret, second daughter of Philip IV. who had declared HER descendants the heirs of his crown, in preference to those of his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa; so that the son of the elector, in default of issue by Charles II. was entitled to the whole Spanish succession, unless the testament of Philip IV. and the renunciation of Maria Theresa, on her marriage with the French monarch, were set aside.

Beside these legal titles to inheritance, the general interests of Europe required that the prince of Bavaria should succeed to the Spanish monarchy; but his two competitors were

obstinate