tigations of his profession,-investigations which he evidently pursued with keen zest, and in perfect steadiness of judgment, - he regarded all the secondary laws which he discovered, or beheld in operation, as illustrations of the regular government of the Power whose personality, and disengaged freedom, and supremacy over the laws through which He ordinarily works, were to him antecedent truths of conscience and reason. "The Religio Medici," which had already appeared in a surreptitious and unauthorized form, was first published by its author in 1643. In the first few pages, his tenderness and charity towards the Roman Church, and his genial and innate repugnance to the spirit of Puritanic bitterness, are made apparent. "We have reformed from them," he says, "not against them." His own temper, he admits, inclines him to the use of form and ceremonial in devotion. "I am, I confess, naturally inclined to that which misguided zeal terms superstition. . . . I could never hear the Ave Mary bell without an elevation." On the whole, he finds that no

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church " squares unto his conscience so well in every

respect as the Church of England, whose Articles he thoroughly embraces, while following his own reason where she and the Scripture are silent. Though at present free, as he alleges, from the taint of any heretical opinion, he entertained in his youth various singular tenets, among which were, the death of the soul together with the body, until the resurrection of both at the Day of Judgment; the ultimate universal restoration of all men, as held by Origen; and the propriety of prayers for the dead. But he declares that there was never a time when he found it difficult to believe a doctrine merely because it transcended and confounded his reason.. "Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith." He can answer

all objections with the maxim of Tertullian, Certum est quia impossibile est, and is glad that he did not live in the age of miracles, when faith would have been thrust upon him almost without any merit of his own. He collects (§§ 15-19) his divinity from two books, — the Bible and Nature. Yet he is not disposed so to deem or speak of Nature as to veil behind her the immanence and necessary action of God in all her phenomena. "Nature is the art of God." Again, he will not, with the vulgar, ascribe any real power to chance or fortune ("it is we that are blind, not fortune "), which is but another name for the settled and predetermined evolution of visible effects from causes the knowledge of which is inaccessible to us. He could himself (§21) produce a long list of difficulties and objections in the way of faith, many of which were never before started. But if these objections breed, at any time, doubts in his mind, he combats such misgivings, "not in a martial posture, but on his knees.”

From this description of the contents of the first few sections, the reader may form some notion of the peculiar and most original vein of thought which runs through the book. As the first part treats of faith, so the second gives the author's meditations on the virtue of charity. A delightful ironical humor breaks out occasionally, as in the advice which he gives to those who desire to be strengthened in their own opinions. "When we desire to be informed, 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but, to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own."

The treatise on vulgar errors, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica," is an amusing examination of a great number of

popular customs and received explanations, which, after holding their ground for ages during the long night of science and philosophy, were now breaking down on all sides under the attacks of the enfranchised intellect. "The Garden of Cyrus " is an abstruse dissertation on the wonderful virtue and significance of the quincuncial form. This is mere mysticism, and of no more value than the dreams of the Pythagoreans as to the virtue of particular numbers.

Physical Science.

The present Royal Society, incorporated, with a view to the promotion of physical science, in 1662, arose out of some scientific meetings held at Oxford in the rooms of Dr. Wilkins, the President of Wadham College. They soon had the honor of numbering among their fellows the great Newton, some of whose principal discoveries were first made known to the world in their "Proceedings." Newton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; in the chapel of which society may be seen a noble statue of him by Roubillac, with the inscription, “Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit."

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CHAPTER V.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

We will commence, as in the last period, with a brief summary of the political history.

The opening of the century beheld the firm establishment of the state of things brought in at the Revolution of 1688, by the passing of the Act of Settlement, limiting the succession to the crown to Sophia, wife of the elector of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. Upon the accession of Anne in 1702, a Tory ministry came into power for a short time. But its principal member — the able and unprincipled Godolphin - passed over to the Whigs; and it was Whig policy which engaged the nation in the war of the Spanish succession. Marlborough, the great Whig general, was closely connected with Godolphin by marriage. Every one has heard of the victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde. The Whig ministry was dismissed in 1710; and their Tory successors, Harley Earl of Oxford, and St. John Lord Bolingbroke, concluded the peace of Utrecht in 1713. But at the death of Anne, in the following year, the Tory ministers, who showed symptoms of favoring the claims of the Pretender (the son of James II.), were at once hurled from power; and the long period of Whig rule commenced, which only ended with the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole, in 1742. This celebrated minister

practically ruled the country for twenty-one years, from 1721 to 1742, during which period England, through him, preserved peace with foreign powers; and such wars as arose on the Continent were shorter and less destructive than they would otherwise have been. But in 1741 the temper of the country had become so warlike that a peace policy was no longer practicable; and Walpole was forced to succumb. The administration. which succeeded, in which the leading spirit was that fine scholar and high-minded nobleman, Lord Carteret (afterwards Earl Granville), engaged in the Austrian succession war on the side of Maria Theresa. England played no very distinguished part in this war, the success at Dettingen (1743) being more than counterbalanced by the reverse at Fontenoy two years later. The intrigues of the Pelhams drove Lord Granville from office in 1744; and the Duke of Newcastle, with his brother Mr. Pelham, formed, with the aid of the leaders of the opposition, what was called the "Broadbottom" ministry. Newcastle-a man of small ability, but strong in his extensive parliamentary influence — remained prime minister for twelve years. In 1745 occurred the insurrection of the Highland clans in favor of the Prince Charles Edward, grandson of James II. After defeating the royal troops at Prestonpans, the Prince marched into England, and penetrated as far as Derby. But, meeting with no support, he was compelled to retreat; and in the following year his followers were totally routed by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden. The Continental war was terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. At the breaking-out of the Seven Years' War in 1756, in which England was allied with Frederick of Prussia against France and Russia, the Duke of Newcastle's incapacity caused every thing to miscarry. Minorca was lost; and the