queen of Sweden to that city, were very different from what they are at this hour. THIS acknowledgment in favour of English ladies, is without doubt, an honor to the fex in England; and if the fame care had been continued in their education, and manner of living together, the British dames would to this hour have furpaffed the French, as much as they did in that time; they want nothing but that culture, and their manners. THE other remark is certainly not true, where he fays, that science and literature paft from Italy thro' France into England; if it began first in Florence, it certainly leaped from thence into this kingdom; the very best English writers have lived before the revival of letters in France, SIR Thomas More, Shakespeare, Ben Johnfon, Beaumont and Fletcher, thefe four in the dramatic way, are yet much esteemed; the firft of them the greateft genius which any nation has produced, and the prefent fupport of the theatre. SPENCER SPENCER in another kind of poetry, excellent and immortal; Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many others, who are, to this day the honor and esteem of England, and Englißmend bad 91.5 9.4 913 li bas & beri anored b WHAT truth then can there be in what Monfeur Voltaire fays, in refpect of the. English having derived science from the reign of Lewis the fourteenth, when these writers were dead before he was born, and the English stage at the perfection it is at present? Las THIS then, muft have rifen from defign or malice, neither of which can have any effect on vigin:50 1 thofe who read him, and know the hiftory of this kingdom; he muft certainly be certainly be better acquainted with what relates to literature in Eng. land, than he appears to be in this account. of this map, to avoid reflecting how intimately the greatest meannefs may be allied, in the hu man compofition, with the moft exalted talents, and and a bad heart deftroy the powers of an able understanding. THIS very man is a moft convincing inftance of this truth; with powers of intellect which might gain an afcendant over all understandings; with an aptitude and facility of ex preffing his fentiments, not to be found but in few; concife and clear without defcending into frivolous littleneffes in remarks; precife in his obfervations, leaving enough to chance and the courfe of things, and yet, affigning fufficiently to the intervention and defign of man, for the honor of human nature. WHAT a mortifying thing it is to fay, after all this, that a littlenefs of foul, mixt with this understanding, has debased this man to the commillion of the meaneft actions: His bafe jealoufy of Maupertuis, has loft him his reputation, and his trifling with the king of Pruffia, the Friendship of that mo narch; fallen from a fituation to be envied by every man, who would chufe to pafs his life in. that delicious manner, which can only be en joyed joyed by the friend and companion of a king, in whom royalty and fcience have made a perfect union, the rareft phænomenon upon earth; the great comet will probably make a hundred revolutions, before they may be again found fo perfectly combined in the head of a monarch. WHO then in looking on the understanding of Voltaire, must not pity him in this lofs; who that turns his eyes on the qualities of his heart, muft not defpife him for deferving it? ALAS! fuch is the condition of fuperior intellects, that nature seems to have taken pleafure in humbling their fuperiority, by fome inferior qualities blended in the heart, which reduces almost all men to the fame level; a Verulam and a Voltaire have only proved the wideft vibration of the pendulum, from the fartheft point of fuperior knowledge, to the oppofite of extreme folly, between which all the various characters of human kind may be found. |