Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors Part 41

Our arch wag says, "The bulls and blunders which Sloane and his friends so naturally pour forth cannot be misrepresented, so careful I am in producing them." King still moves the risible muscles of his readers. "The Voyage to Cajamai," a travestie of Sloane's valuable "History of Jamaica," is still a peculiar piece of humour; and it has been rightly distinguished as "one of the severest and merriest satires that was ever written in prose."[279] The author might indeed have blushed at the labour bestowed on these drolleries; he might have dreaded that humour so voluminous might grow tedious; but King, often with a LUCIANIC spirit, with flashes of RABELAIS, and not seldom with the causticity of his friend Swift, dissipated life in literary idleness, with parodies and travesties on most of his contemporaries; and he made these little things often more exquisite at the cost of consuming on them a genius capable of better. A parodist or a burlesquer is a wit who is perpetually on the watch to catch up or to disguise an author's words, to swell out his defects, and pick up his blunders--to amuse the public! King was a wit, who lived on the highway of literature, appropriating, for his own purpose, the property of the most eminent pa.s.sengers, by a dextrous mode no other had hit on. What an important lesson the labours of King offer to real genius! Their temporary humour lost with their prototypes becomes like a paralytic limb, which, refusing to do its office, impedes the action of the vital members.

WOTTON, in summing up his "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning," was doubtful whether knowledge would improve in the next age proportionably as it had done in his own. "The humour of the age is visibly altered," he says, "from what it had been thirty years ago.

Though the Royal Society has weathered the rude attacks of Stubbe,"

yet "the sly insinuations of the _Men of Wit_," with "the _public ridiculing_ of all who spend their time and fortunes in scientific or curious researches, have so taken off the edge of those who have opulent fortunes and a love to learning, that these studies begin to be contracted amongst physicians and mechanics."--He treats King with good-humour. "A man is got but a very little way (in philosophy) that is concerned as often as such a merry gentleman as Dr. King shall think fit to make himself sport."[280]

FOOTNOTES:

[253] Some may be curious to have these monkish terms defined.

_Causes_ are distinguished by Aristotle into four kinds:--The material cause, _ex qua_, out of which things are made; the formal cause, _per quam_, by which a thing is that which it is, and nothing else; the efficient cause, _a qua_, by the agency of which anything is produced; and the final cause, _propter quam_, the end for which it is produced. Such are his notions in his Phys. 1. ii. c. iii., referred to by Brucker and Formey in their Histories of Philosophy. Of the Scholastic Metaphysics, _Sprat_, the historian of the Royal Society, observes, "that the lovers of that cloudy knowledge boast that it is an excellent instrument to refine and make subtle the minds of men. But there may be _a greater excess in the subtlety of men's wits_ than in their _thickness_; as we see those threads, which are of too fine a spinning, are found to be more useless than those which are homespun and gross."--_History of the Royal Society_, p. 326.

In the history of human folly, often so closely connected with that of human knowledge, some of the schoolmen (the commentators on Aquinas and others) prided themselves, and were even admired for their impenetrable obscurity! One of them, and our countryman, is singularly commended by Cardan, for that "only one of his arguments was enough to puzzle all posterity; and that, when he had grown old, he wept because he could not understand his own books." Baker, in his Reflections upon Learning, who had examined this schoolman, declares that his obscurity is such, as if he never meant to be understood.

The extravagances of the schoolmen are, however, not always those of Aristotle. Pope, and the wits of that day, like these early members of the Royal Society, decried Aristotle, who did not probably fall in the way of their studies. His great imperfections are in natural philosophy; but he still preserves his eminence for his n.o.ble treatises of Ethics, and Politics, and Poetics, notwithstanding the imperfect state in which these have reached us. Dr. Copleston and Dr. Gillies have given an energetic testimony to their perpetual value.

Pope, in satirising the University as a nest of dunces, considered the followers of Aristotle as so many stalled oxen, "_fat bulls of Basan_."

"A hundred head of Aristotle's friends."

DUNCIAD.

Swift has drawn an allegorical personage of Aristotle, by which he describes the nature of his works. "He stooped much, and made use of a staff; his visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow;" descriptive of his abrupt conciseness, his harsh style, the obscurities of his dilapidated text, and the deficiency of feeling, which his studied compression, his deep sagacity, and his a.n.a.lytical genius, so frequently exhibit.

[254] Sprat makes an ingenious observation on the notion of those who declared that "_the most learned ages are still the most atheistical, and the ignorant the most devout_." He says this had become almost proverbial, but he shows that piety is little beholden to those who make this distinction. "The Jewish law forbids us to offer up to G.o.d a sacrifice that has a blemish; but these men bestow the most excellent of men on the devil, and only a.s.sign to religion those men and those times which have the greatest blemish of human nature, even a defect in their knowledge and understanding."--_History of the Royal Society_, p. 356.

[255] Science, at its birth, is as much the child of imagination as curiosity; and, in rapture at the new instrument it has discovered, it impatiently magnifies its power. To the infant, all improvements are wonders; it chronicles even its dreams, and has often described what it never has seen, delightfully deceived; the cold insults of the cynics, the wits, the dull, and the idle, maliciously mortify the infant in its sports, till it returns to slow labour and patient observation. It is rather curious, however, that when science obtains a certain state of maturity, it is liable to be attacked by the same fits of the marvellous which affected its infancy;--and the following extract from one of the enthusiastic _Virtuosi_ in the infancy of science, rivals the visions of "the perfectibility of man" of which we hear so much at this late period. Some, perhaps, may consider these strong tendencies of the imagination, breaking out at these different periods in the history of science, to indicate results, of which the mind feels a consciousness, which the philosopher should neither indulge nor check.

"Should these heroes go on (the Royal Society) as they have happily begun, they will fill the world with wonders; and posterity will find many things that are now but _rumours_, verified into practical _realities_. It may be, some ages hence, a _voyage_ to the southern unknown tracts, yea, possibly the _Moon_, will not be more strange than one to America. To them that come after us, it may be as ordinary to _buy a pair of wings_ to fly into remotest regions, as now _a pair of boots_ to ride a journey. And to confer at the distance of the Indies, by _sympathetic conveyances_, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a literary correspondence. The restoration of _grey hairs to juvenility_, and renewing the _exhausted marrow_, may at length, be effected without a miracle; and the turning the now-comparative _desert world_ into a _paradise_, may not improbably be expected from late _agriculture_.

"Those that judge by the narrowness of former principles and successes, will smile at these paradoxical expectations. But the great inventions of latter ages, which altered the face of all things, in their naked proposals and mere suppositions, were to former times as ridiculous. To have talked of a new earth to have been discovered, had been a romance to antiquity; and to sail without sight of stars or sh.o.r.es, by the guidance of a mineral, a story more absurd than the flight of Daedalus. That men should speak after their tongues were ashes, or communicate with each other in differing hemispheres, before the invention of letters, could not but have been thought a fiction. Antiquity would not have believed the almost incredible force of our cannons, and would as coldly have entertained the wonders of the telescope."--GLANVILL, _Scepsis Scientifica_, p. 133.

[256] Evelyn, whose elegant mind, one would have imagined, had been little susceptible of such vehement anger, in the preface to his "Sylva," scolds at no common rate: "Well-meaning people are led away by the noise of a few ignorant and comical buffoons, who, with an insolence suitable to their understanding, are still crying out, _What have the Society done?_" He attributes all the opposition and ridicule the Society encountered to a personage not usual to be introduced into a philosophical controversy--"The Enemy of Mankind." But it was well to denounce the devil himself, as the Society had nearly lost the credit of fearing him. Evelyn insists that "next to the propagation of our most holy faith," that of the new philosophy was desirable both for the king and the nation; "for," he adds, "it will survive the triumphs of the proudest conquerors; since, when all their pomp and noise is ended, they are those _little things in black_, whom now in scorn they term philosophers and fops, to whom they must be obliged for making their names outlast the pyramids, whose founders are as unknown as the heads of the Nile." Why Evelyn designates the philosophers as _little things in black_, requires explanation. Did they affect a dress of this colour in the reign of Charles II., or does he allude to the dingy appearance of the chemists?

[257] It is not easy to credit the simplicity of these early inquirers. In a Memorial in Sprat's History, ent.i.tled, "Answers returned by Sir Philliberto Vernatti to certain Inquiries sent by order of the Royal Society;" among some of the most extraordinary questions and descriptions of nonent.i.ties, which must have fatigued Sir Philliberto, who then resided in Batavia, I find the present:--"Qy. 8. What ground there may be for that relation concerning _horns taking root, and growing about Goa_?" It seems the question might as well have been asked at London, and answered by some of the members themselves; for Sir Philliberto gravely replied--"Inquiring about this, a friend laughed, and told me it was a jeer put upon the Portuguese, because the women of Goa are counted none of the chastest." Inquiries of this nature, and often the most trivial objects set off with a singular minuteness of description, tempted the laugh of the scoffers. Their great adversary, Stubbe, ridiculing their mode of giving instructions for inquiries, regrets that the paper he received from them had been lost, otherwise he would have published it. "The great Mr. Boyle, when he brought it, tendered it with blushing and disorder," at the simplicity of the Royal Society! And indeed the royal founder himself, who, if he was something of a philosopher, was much more of a wit, set the example. The Royal Society, on the day of its creation, was the whetstone of the wit of their patron. When Charles II. dined with the members on the occasion of const.i.tuting them a Royal Society, towards the close of the evening he expressed his satisfaction in being the first English monarch who had laid a foundation for a society who proposed that their sole studies should be directed to the investigation of the arcana of nature; and added with that peculiar gravity of countenance he usually wore on such occasions, that among such learned men he now hoped for a solution to a question which had long perplexed him. The case he thus stated:--"Suppose two pails of water were fixed in two different scales that were equally poised, and which weighed equally alike, and that two live bream, or small fish, were put into either of these pails, he wanted to know the reason why that pail, with such addition, should not weigh more than the other pail which stood against it." Every one was ready to set at quiet the royal curiosity; but it appeared that every one was giving a different opinion. One, at length, offered so ridiculous a solution, that another of the members could not refrain from a loud laugh; when the King, turning to him, insisted that he should give his sentiments as well as the rest. This he did without hesitation, and told his majesty, in plain terms, that he denied the fact! On which the King, in high mirth, exclaimed--"Odds fish, brother, you are in the right!" The jest was not ill designed. The story was often useful, to cool the enthusiasm of the scientific visionary, who is apt often to account for what never has existed.

[258] Pope was severe in his last book of the _Dunciad_ on the students of insects, flowers, &c.; and R.O. Cambridge followed out the idea of a mad virtuoso in his "Scribleriad," which he has made up from the absurd or trifling parts of natural history and philosophy. His hero is--

"A much-enduring man, whose curious soul Bore him with ceaseless toil from pole to pole; Insatiate endless knowledge to obtain, Thro' woes by land, thro' dangers on the main."

He collects curiosities from all parts of the world; studies occult and natural sciences; and is at last beatified by electrical glories at a meeting of hermetical philosophers.

This poem is elucidated by notes, which point the allusions to the works or doings of the old philosophers.--ED.

[259] Evelyn, who could himself be a wit occasionally, was, however, much annoyed by the scorners. He applies to these wits a pa.s.sage in Nehemiah ii. 19, which describes those who laughed at the _builders of Jerusalem_. "These are the Sanballats, the Horonites, who disturb our men upon the wall; but _let us rise up and build_!" He describes these Horonites of wit as "magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of their perukes." But the Royal Society was attacked from other quarters, which ought to have a.s.sisted them. Evelyn, in his valuable treatise on forest-trees, had inserted a new project for making cider; and Stubbe insisted, that in consequence "much cider had been spoiled within these three years, by following the directions published by the commands of the Royal Society." They afterwards announced that they never considered themselves as answerable for their own memoirs, which gave Stubbe occasion to boast that he had forced them to deny what they had written. A pa.s.sage in Hobbes's "Considerations upon his Reputation, &c.," is as remarkable for the force of its style as for that of sense, and may be applicable to _some_ at this day, notwithstanding the progress of science, and the importance attached to their busy idleness.

"Every man that hath spare money can get furnaces, and buy coals. Every man that hath spare money can be at the charge of making great moulds, &c., and so may have the best and greatest telescopes. They can get engines made, recipients made, and try conclusions; but they are never the more philosophers for all this. 'Tis laudable to bestow money on curious or useful delights, but that is none of the praises of a philosopher." p. 53.

[260] Glanvill was a learned man, but evidently superst.i.tious, particularly in all that related to witchcraft and apparitions; the reality of both being insisted on by him in a series of books which he published at various periods of his life, and which he continually worked upon with new arguments and instances, in spite of all criticism or opposition. He was a member of the Royal Society, prebend of Worcester, and rector of Bath, where he died, October 4, 1680.--ED.

[261] The ninth chapter in the "Plus Ultra," ent.i.tled "The Credit of Optic Gla.s.ses vindicated against a disputing man, who is afraid to believe his eyes against Aristotle," gives one of the ludicrous incidents of this philosophical visit. The disputer raised a whimsical objection against the science of optics, insisting that the newly-invented gla.s.ses, the telescope, the microscope, &c., were all deceitful and fallacious; for, said the Aristotelian, "take two spectacles, use them at the same time, and you will not see so well as with one singly--_ergo_, your microscopes and telescopes are impostors." How this was forced into a syllogism does not appear; but still the conclusion ran, "We can see better through one pair than two, therefore all perspectives are fallacious!"

One proposition for sense, And t'other for convenience,

will make a tolerable syllogism for a logician in despair. The Aristotelian was, however, somewhat puzzled by a problem which he had himself raised--"Why we cannot see with two pair of spectacles better than with one singly?" for the man of axioms observed, "_Vis unita fortior_," "United strength _is stronger_." It is curious enough, in the present day, to observe the st.u.r.dy Aristotelian denying these discoveries, and the praises of optics, and "the new gla.s.ses," by Glanvill. "If this philosopher," says the member of the Royal Society, "had spared some of those thoughts to the profitable doctrine of optics which he hath spent upon _genus_ and _species_, we had never heard of this objection." And he replies to the paradox which the Aristotelian had raised by "Why cannot he write better with _two pens_ than with a _single one_, since _Vis unita fortior_? When he hath answered this _Quaere_, he hath resolved his own. The reason he gave why it should be so, is the reason why 'tis not." Such are the squabbles of infantine science, which cannot as yet discover causes, although it has ascertained effects.

[262] This appears in chap. xviii. of the "Plus Ultra." With great simplicity Glanvill relates:--"At this period of the conference, the disputer lost all patience, and with sufficient spite and rage told me 'that I was an atheist!--that he had indeed desired my acquaintance, but would have no more on't,'

and so turned his back and went away, giving me time only to answer that 'I had no great reason to lament the loss of an acquaintance that could be so easily forfeited.'" The following chapter vindicates the Royal Society from the charge of atheism! to a.s.sure the world they were not to be ranked "among the black conspirators against Heaven!" We see the same objections again occurring in the modern system of geology.

[263] This book was so scarce in 1757, that the writer in the "Biographia Britannica" observes that this "small but elegant treatise is still very much esteemed by the curious, being become so scarce as not to be met with in other hands." Oldys, in 1738, had, in his "British Librarian," selected this work among the scarce and valuable books of which he has presented us with so many useful a.n.a.lyses.

The history of books is often curious. At one period a book is scarce and valuable, and at another is neither one nor the other. This does not always depend on the caprice of the public, or what may be called literary fashions. Glanvill's "Plus Ultra" is probably now of easy occurrence; like a prophecy fully completed, the uncertain event being verified, the prophet has ceased to be remembered.

[264] His early history is given by Wood in his usual style. His father had been a Lincolnshire parson, who was obliged to leave his poor curacy because "anabaptistically inclined," and fled to Ireland, whence his mother and her children were obliged to return on the breaking out of the rebellion of 1641, and landed at Liverpool; afterward, says Wood, "they all beated it on the hoof thence to London, where she, gaining a comfortable subsistence by her needle, sent her son Henry, being then ten years of age, to the collegiate school at Westminster. At that time Mr. Richard Busbie was the chief master, who finding the boy have pregnant parts to a miracle, did much favour and encourage him. At length Sir Henry Vane, junior (the same who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1662), coming casually into the school with Dr. Lambert Osbaldiston, he did, at the master's motion, take a kindness to the said boy, and gave him the liberty to resort to his house, and to fill that belly which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny could purchase for his dinner: and as for his breakfast, he had none, except he got it by making somebody's exercise. Soon after, Sir Henry got him to be a king's scholar; and his master perceiving him to be beyond his years in proficiency, he gave him money to buy books, clothes, and his teaching for nothing." Such was the humble beginning of a learned man, who lived to be a formidable opponent to the whole body of the Royal Society.--ED.

[265] When Sprat and Glanvill, and others, had threatened to write his life, Stubbe draws this apology for it, while he shows how much, in a time of revolutions, the Royal Society might want one for themselves.

"I was so far from being daunted at those rumours and threats, that I enlarged much this book thereupon, and resolved to charge the enemy home when I saw how weak a resistance I should meet with. I knew that recriminations were no answers.

I understood well that the pa.s.sages of a life like mine, spent in different places with much privacy and obscurity, was unknown to them; that even those actions they would fix their greatest calumnies upon, were such as that they understood not the grounds, nor had they learning enough and skill to condemn. I was at Westminster School when the late king was beheaded. I never took covenant nor engagement. In sum, _I served my patron_. I endeavoured to express my _grat.i.tude_ to him who had relieved me, being a _child_, and in great poverty (the rebellion in Ireland having deprived my parents of all means wherewith to educate me); who made me a king's scholar; preferred me to Christchurch College, Oxon.; and who often supplied me with money when my tender years gave him little hopes of any return; and who protected me amidst the _Presbyterians_, and _Independents_, and other _sects_. With none thereof did I contract any relation or acquaintance; my familiarity never engaged me with ten of that party; and my genius and humour inclined me to fewer. I neither enriched, nor otherwise advanced myself, during the late troubles; and shared the common _odium_ and _dangers_, not _prosperity_, with my _benefactor_. I believe no generous man, who hath the least sense of bravery, will condemn me; and I profess I am ashamed rather to have done so little, than that I have done so much, for him that so frankly obliged a _stranger_ and a _child_. When Gracchus was put to death for sedition, that faithful friend and accomplice of his was dismissed, and mentioned with honour by all posterity, who, when he was impeached, _justified his treason_ by the avowing a _friendship_ so great that, whatever Gracchus had commanded him, he would not have declined it. And being further questioned, whether he would have burned the capitol at his bidding? he replied again, that he should have done it; but Gracchus would not bid such a thing. They that knew me heretofore, know I have a thousand times thus apologised for myself; adding, that in _va.s.sals_ and _slaves_, and persons _transcendently obliged_, their fidelity exempted them from all ignominy, though the princ.i.p.al _lords_, _masters_, and _patrons_, might be accounted _traitors_. My youth and other circ.u.mstances incapacitated me from rendering him any great services; but _all that I did_, and _all that I writ_, had no other aim than _his interest_; nor do I care how much any man can inodiate my former writings, as long as they were subservient to him.

"Having made this declaration, let them (or more able men than they) write the life of a man who hath some virtues of the most celebrated times, and hath preserved himself free from the vices of these. My reply shall be a scornful silence."--Preface to Stubbe's "Legends no Histories," 1670.

[266] His reasons for conformity on these important objects are given with his usual simplicity. "I have at length removed all the umbrages I ever lay under. I have joined myself to the Church of England, not only upon account of its being _publicly imposed_ (which in _things indifferent_ is no small consideration, as I learned from the Scottish transactions at Perth), but because it is _the least defining_, and consequently _the most comprehensive and fitting to be national_."

[267] He died at Bath in 1676, where he had gone in attendance upon several of his patients from the neighbourhood of Warwick, where he for a long time practised as a physician. His old antagonist Glanvill was at that time rector of the Abbey Church in which he was buried, and so became the preacher of his funeral sermon. Wood says he "said no great matter of him."--ED.

[268] Pope said to Spence, "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee-house the great resort for the wits of his time. After his death Addison transferred it to b.u.t.ton's, who had been a servant of his." Will's coffee-house was at the corner of Bow-street, Covent-garden, and b.u.t.ton's close by in Russell-street.--ED.

[269] "Some years after the king's restoration he took pet against the Royal Society, (for which before he had a great veneration,) and being encouraged by Dr. Jo. Fell, no admirer of that society, became in his writings an inveterate enemy against it for several pretended reasons: among which were, first, that the members thereof intended to bring a contempt upon ancient and solid learning, upon Aristotle, to undermine the universities, and reduce them to nothing, or at least to be very inconsiderable. Secondly, that at long running to destroy the established religion, and involve the nation in popery, and I know not what, &c. So dexterous was his pen, whether _pro_ or _con_, that few or none could equal, answer, or come near him. He was a person of most admirable parts, had a most prodigious memory, though his enemies would not acknowledge it, but said he read indexes; was the most noted Latinist and Grecian of his age; and after he had been put upon it, was so great an enemy to the _virtuosi_ of his time, I mean those of the Royal Society, that, as he saith, they alarmed him with dangers and troubles even to the hazard of his life and fortunes."--_Wood._

[270] The aspersed pa.s.sage in Glanvill is this: "The philosophers of elder times, though their wits were excellent, yet the way they took was not like to bring much advantage to knowledge, or any of the uses of human life, being, for the most part, that of _Notion_ and _Dispute_, which still runs round in a labyrinth of talk, but advanceth nothing. _These methods_, in so many centuries, _never brought the world so much practical beneficial knowledge as could help towards the cure of a cut finger_." Plus Ultra, p. 7.--Stubbe, with all the malice of a wit, drew his inference, and turned the point unfairly against his adversary!

I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a literary court of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate the works of a contemporary; and how idly the literary historian performs his task, whenever he adopts the character of a writer from another who is his adversary. This may be particularly shown in the present instance.

MORHOFF, in his _Polyhistor Litteraria_, censures the _Plus Ultra_ of Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with contempt all ages and nations but his own. The German bibliographer had never seen the book, but took its character from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the _Plus Ultra_, however, differs little from the other works of Glanvill, which Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.

[271] The political reverie of Campanella was even suspected to cover very opposite designs to those he seemed to be proposing to the world. He attempted to turn men's minds from all inquiries into politics and religion, to mere philosophical ones. He wished that the pa.s.sions of mankind might be so directed, as to spend their force in philosophical discussions, and in improvements in science. He therefore insisted on a uniformity on those great subjects which have so long agitated modern Europe; for the ancients seem to have had no wars merely for religion, and perhaps none for modes of government. One may discover an enlightened principle in the project; but the character of Campanella was a jumble of sense, subtlety, and wildness. He probably masked his real intentions. He appears an advocate for the firm establishment of the papal despotism; yet he aims to give an enlightened principle to regulate the actions of mankind. The intentions of a visionary are difficult to define. If he were really an advocate for despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater part of his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the surface of things? Did Campanella imagine that, if men were allowed to philosophise with the utmost freedom, the despotism of religion and politics would dissolve away in the weakness of its quiescent state?

The project is a chimera--but, according to the projector, the political and religious freedom of _England_ formed its greatest obstacle. Part of his plan, therefore, includes the means of weakening the Insular heretics by intestine divisions--a mode not seldom practised by the continental powers of France and Spain.

The political project of this fervid genius was, that his "Prince," the Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign in Europe. For this, he was first to prohibit all theological controversies from the Transalpine schools, those of Germany, &c. "A controversy," he observes, "always shows a kind of victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause." He would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to prevent all diversity of opinion. He would have revived the ancient philosophical sects, instead of the modern religious sects.

The _Greek_ and the _Hebrew_ languages were not to be taught!

for the republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians had often proved destructive of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold scheme of his _Leviathan_, seems to have been aware of this fatality. Campanella would subst.i.tute for these ancient languages the study of the _Arabic_ tongue! The troublesome Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did sagacity and extravagance a.s.sociate in the mind of this wild genius. But _Mathematical_ and _Astronomical_ schools, and other inst.i.tutions for the encouragement of the _mechanical arts_, and particularly those to which the northern genius is most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of the people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and withdraw them from theological factions. Campanella thus would make men great in science, having first made them slaves in politics; a philosophical people were to be the subjects of despots--not an impossible event!

His plan, remarkable enough, of _weakening the English_, I give in his words:--"No better way can possibly be found than by causing divisions and dissensions among them, and by continually keeping up the same; which will furnish the Spaniard and the French with advantageous opportunities. As for their religion, which is a moderated Calvinism, that cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out there, unless there were some schools set up in Flanders, where the English have great commerce, by means of which there may be scattered abroad the seeds of schism and division. These people being of a nature which is still desirous of novelties and change, they are easily wrought over to anything." These _schools_ were tried at Douay in Flanders, and at Valladolid in Spain, and other places. They became nests of rebellion for the English Catholics; or for any one, who, being discontented with government, was easily converted to any religion which aimed to overturn the British Const.i.tution. The _secret history_ of the Roman Catholics in England remains yet to be told: they indeed had their martyrs and their heroes; but the _public effects_ appear in the frequent executions which occurred in the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

Stubbe appears to have imagined that the ROYAL SOCIETY was really formed on the principle of Campanella; to withdraw the people from intermeddling with _politics_ and _religion_, by engaging them merely in philosophical pursuits.--The reaction of the public mind is an object not always sufficiently indicated by historians. The vile hypocrisy and mutual persecutions of the numerous fanatics occasioned very relaxed and tolerant principles of religion at the Restoration; as, the democratic fury having spent itself, too great an indulgence was now allowed to monarchy. Stubbe was alarmed that, should Popery be established, the crown of England would become feudatory to foreign power, and embroil the nation in the rest.i.tution of all the abbey lands, of which, at the Reformation, the Church had so zealously been plundered. He was still further alarmed that the _virtuosi_ would influence the education of our youth to these purposes; "an evil," says he, "which has been guarded against by our ancestors in founding _free-schools_, by uniformity of instruction cementing men's minds." We now smile at these terrors; perhaps they were sometimes real. The absolute necessity of strict conformity to the prevalent religion of Europe was avowed in that unrivalled scheme of despotism, which menaced to efface every trace of popular freedom, and the independence of nations, under the dominion of Napoleon.

[272] To this threat of writing his life, we have already noticed the n.o.ble apology he has drawn up for the versatility of his opinions. See p. 347. At the moment of the Restoration it was unwise for any of the parties to reproach another for their opinions or their actions. In a national revolution, most men are implicated in the general reproach; and Stubbe said, on this occasion, that "he had observed worse faces in the society than his own." Waller, and Sprat, and Cowley had equally commemorated the protectorship of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles. Our satirist insidiously congratulates himself that "_he_ had never compared Oliver the regicide to Moses, or his son to Joshua;" nor that he had ever written any Pindaric ode, "dedicated to the happy memory of the most renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector:" nothing to recommend "the sacred urn" of that blessed spirit to the veneration of posterity; as if

"His _fame_, like men, the elder it doth grow, Will of itself turn _whiter_ too, Without what needless art can do."

These lines were, I think, taken from Sprat himself! Stubbe adds, it would be "imprudent in them to look beyond the act of indemnity and oblivion, which was more necessary to the Royal Society than to me, who joined with no party, &c."--_Preface to "Legends no Histories."_