prince, under a pure or a limited monarchy, is by the constitution of his country, the leader of a faction would willingly become in a republican government. For can you believe a popular reformer, or rather I should say, a down right intemperate leveller, to be actuated by principles less arbitrary than a Cromwell or a Mirabeau ? Such may, however, be sometimes, I confess, beneficial. Like a storm, they may clear the stagnant and pestilential atmosphere; they may at least give it motion; and instead of the fruits of virtue and goodness in a single man, or in a small body of men,they may serve to bring about an arrangement of functions in civil society, which properly distributes, among numbers, exercises and occupations suited to their respective talents. Those who pitifully surrender their rights, then, no man will deny,deserve to be trampled upon. They may indeed have their laws, and they may have their senates; but they must expect to be treated as Pope Gregory treated the Emperor Henry; or as the Centurion, who brought the petition of Octavius to the Conscript Fathers,* merely by shewing them the hilt of his sword; thereby letting the rulers of the world know that petitions were converted into demands.

Suetonius.

It is said, that real advantage invariably results from controversy; for the conflict, sharpening,neçessarily exercises the contending powers of learning and genius; and each antagonist, alternately vanquished and victorious, extirpates some ancient error,and establishes some interesting truth. Thus sparks of freedom are ever elicited by the collision of adverse servitude. And hence the old, but never to be forgotten adage, that "he who will not apply new remedies to an impaired constitution, must expect new evils." We have above seen, however, that many years before Luther, the intolerable pretensions of the church of Rome were openly attacked by some of its most learned and respectable professors. But these attempts proved abortive; for the time was not ripe, which was to crown them with success; or, which is perhaps still more likely, the abilities employed in so very plain and simple a cause, were wasted in theological speculation, or absorbed in the abyss of metaphysical polemics. The celebrated son of Rotterdam, the lively and classical Erasmus, when he took up the pen of good humour and ridicule at Basil in Switzerland, allured to Protestantism more than all the volumes of the orthodox Calvin, and of all the dissenters who preceded him.

3

Super

Superstition is a dreadful scourge; and consequently, as soon as it is detected, it should be, if possible, destroyed. All changes of rooted establishments, no doubt, especially of a national religion, are attended with shocks and convulsions, unpropitious to momentary repose and tranquility. But, these unavoidable inconveniencies do not last long. And can it be seriously expected, for example, that mankind should forever, to the eternal debasement of their reason, submit to the establishment of eighty-four.commanderies, and two hundred priories and other benefices in Spain, for the honour of an old devotee, called St. Jago? Or that the institution by the late king of Spain, in the year 1771, of a new order, immediately under the inspection of the most holy Mary, founded on the mystery of her immaculate conception, should be perpetual ? *

Well may such states, on the glorious beaming forth of truth and toleration, shrink into timid concealment, and most treacherously forbid the introduction of enlightened, political, and religious disquisitions. But these men forget, that a door has long since been opened to free inquiry, which

• Robertson,

which can never again be shut. In the eleventh century, as it is said, the art of making paper, such as is now in use, was invented.* This paper increased the number of manuscripts; and manucripts facilitated, in some respects, the disposition to inquiry. But, manuscripts were not found sufficient for the busy eagerness of research. The art of printing was therefore at length worked out. And this diffused at once so general a light, that men found they could both run and read; whence the mental emancipation which took place at the æra of the reformation. The application is easy.

A man of expanded intellect possesses all his senses, in the manner best adapted to receive the impression of every true pleasure, which Providence has scattered with such a liberal hand for the delight of the human species. There is nothing intrinsically beautiful, which does not furnish him with delight; as there is nothing ugly or deformed, which does not affect him with disgust and abhorrence. In a word, the avenues of his mind are open only to those enjoyments, which bring with them the passports of truth and reason. His conduct is influenced

bx

* Muratori.

by sentiment, as well as by principle. And if he were ever so secure of secrecy and impunity, he would no more be capable of committing an unworthy or a base action, than he would of the most direct robbery or murder. In every part of his character, you see him, therefore, consistent and firm. He is in every respect the man of energy; for he alone cannot be deprived of it. The prudent, indeed, sometimes see difficulties; and the bold, merely the advantages of an enterprize. But the enlightened man sees both; and accordingly, diminishing that, and making this preponderate, he succeeds. What man shall be afraid, who does not distrust himself?

While, in truth, men continue to act alone from appetites and passions, which lead to the attainment of interested ends, they seldom quit the view of their objects in detail, to go far into the road of generally beneficial inquiries. None therefore are to be estimated from what they know, but all from what they perform. It is not, at the same time, to be denied, that the universal state of society in Europe, at the early periods of which we are speaking, was not altogether free from those blemishes, which excus

ed,