is censured by Favier, obtained for us an important diver sion at the time, and incalculable future advantages.' (vol. ii. p. 243.) Let us think of this when the old connexion be.. tween France and Spain shall revive, as it assuredly will.. We have always been too eager to pick a quarrel with Spain, from the time of the unjust and impolitic war for Jenkins's ear, down to Mr. Pitt's war in 1805; though the inevitable tendency is to cement her union with France, increase our expences, distract our attention, and divert our arms from their true object. If it be the interest of France to interpose Spain between herself and the rebuffs and insults of forune.'* it cannot be ours to second her views by such a misapplica tion of our means.

The division of Germany and Italy into petty states has always been the true cause of the greatness of France :' &c.. (vol. ii. p. 396.) The fusion of these states into a certain num-, ber of respectable nations, is a desideratum of not altogether hopeless accomplishment.

I shall make no comment on the following extract. (vol. iii. p. 65.) Le ministre Britannique veut être le tyran des 6 mers; et comme il craint la rivalité, les richesse et la puis6 sance des Francais, il veut les appauvrir par des guerres fréquentes, qui les empechent de porter leurs efforts et leur 'activité sur l' ocean. D'après ce systeme il excitera, tant < qu'il le pourra, des troubles sur le continent, et soldera, toutes les fois qu'il en trouvera le moyen, des gladiateurs ' couronnés pour ensanglauter la terre, et rendre sa domi nation sur la mer plus paisible.'

The Temple of Janus is at last shut. May the dawning season of peace, justice, and universal prosperity, equal in duration that which has closed of violence, rapine, and carnage!

See Spirit of Laws, book ix, chap. x.

ART. II. Observations on some Passages in Voltaire's Essay on Universal History. Nugent's Translation. 4 Vols. 1782.

VOLUME FIRST.

Pages 10, 11. HE represents the empire of China as having

subsisted in splendour 4000 years;" and as Fohi, the first sole monarch of its "15 kingdoms," reigned 25 centuries, at least, before our vulgar era, China must have been, “long be"fore that time, very populous, civilized, and divided into many "sovereignties." The facility with which Voltaire admitted any fable respecting China, and the baseless fabricks he reared upon them, contrast strongly with the uniform suspicion with which he looked upon, and rejected, the most authentic proofs of holy writ. Let a Chinese or Japanese priest, with a name that might convert one to the Shandean fancies, carry back his annals ad libitum; let him spurn the bounded reign of truth and reason, heaping one extravagance upon another; let him lay the treasure at the feet of Voltaire, and he will be delighted with the present: on the other hand, let certain books of European history be presented to him, and he will wax exceeding wroth, and be more clamorous against their reception than Cassandra was against the reception of the wooden horse. The Anti-Christian, and even Anti-European, zeal which he betrays on such occasions, and which entitled Mr. Gibbon to call him " a bigot, an intole86 rant bigot," are perhaps more remarkable than the historical errors of which he has been guilty; and yet what excuse is there for them, since M. De Guignes published his translation of the Chouking, with a preface and notes, at Paris, in 1770, and Voltaire died in 1778? Mr. Gibbon did not confine his scepticism to the history of christianity, but carried it with better success into every other enquiry, displaying the utmost assiduity, fidelity, and discrimination in the veri

fication of facts: on the subject of the early history of China, accordingly, he consulted the above work, and many others referred to by him, (iv. 358.) and the result is, that "the "historical period of China does not ascend above the Greek "Olympiads;" that is, it commences in the eighth century before Christ; and that though, by a probable tradition it may ascend 40 centuries, yet in those early times, instead of there being a very splendid, populous and civilized empire" "Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was still a moveable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of hunting was ordained to clear the country from "wild beasts; Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert;

66

6.

and the southern provinces were peopled with Indiau savages. The dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) แ gave the empire its actual form and extent." Having gra tuitously peopled the country at such an early period, he finds, in the slowness with which mankind multiply, a further proof of its antiquity: "The calculators of the propagation of the human species have observed that there must be favourable circumstances for a nation to encrease a twen tieth part in the space of a hundred years." Now, with out favourable circumstances, a nation may double its mem bers in a hundred years; and his friend Dr. Franklin might have told him that in some parts of North America the popu lation doubled in 15 years, and in other parts in 25 years. Page 38. "Some people have imagined, from an equivo "cal passage in the Koran, that Mahomet could neither write nor read; which would still add to the prodigies of his success. But it is not probable that a man who had "been long a merchant, should be ignorant of what is so necessary to trade," &c. Is the mere assumption of an improbability to refute the most positive testimony? That would subvert the very foundations of historical truth, and confound all experience respecting the credibility of human

testimony. How many (supposed) improbable facts might be expunged, and replaced by what might appear more likely fabrications? The authorities on this subject are, as usual drawn up by Mr. Gibbon, (ix. 257.) with irresistible force. "Those who believe," says Mr. G. "that Mahomet could "read or write, are incapable of reading what is written, with "another pen, in the Surats, or Chapters of the Koran vii. “xxix. xcvi. These texts, and the tradition of the Sonna, are

admitted without doubt, by Abulfeda (in vit. c. vii.), Gag"nier (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15), Pocock (Specimen, p. 151), "Reland (de Religione Mohammedicà, p. 236), and Sale "(Preliminary discourse, p. 42.)" I refer the reader to the rest of the note, which is equally satisfactory.*

Page 188. "Historians inform us, that this excommuni. ❝cation (of Robert, King of France, A. D. 998.) had such 66 an effect in France, that the King was abandoned by all ❝his courtiers, and even by his own domestics; and that

there staid with him only two servants, who threw into "the fire what he left at his meals, from the horror they felt at what had been touched by an excommunicated person. Degraded as human nature was at that time, yet "there is no probability that the absurdity could be carried so far. The first author who mentions this stupidity of "the court of France, is Cardinal Peter Damien, who did "not write his account till sixty-four years after: And he "relates, that as a punishment of this pretended incest, (the "King having married his cousin Bertha) the Queen was "brought to bed of a monster; but there is nothing mons"trous in this whole affair, except the assurance of the Pope,

and the weakness of the King who separated from his wife.". Here again he applies his arbitrary scale of probability to set aside the information of the writers of those times, respecting a circumstance, highly characteristic of the prevailing

See Note x. to Dr. Robertson's view of the State of Europe.

superstition, and which has been admitted, I believe, by all subsequent authors.* It would be a strange rule that should direct us to admit some, and reject other, effects of superstition in any given period, according to a pretended evaluation of its influence over the human mind at that period, instead of regulating our conceptions of the strength of that influence by observing the effects it actually produced. Neither the moral, nor physical world ought to be contracted" ad angustias intellectus, sed expandendus intellectus "& laxandus, ad mundi, imaginem recipiendam qualis in"venitur." (Bacon's works, iv. 392.) The assurance of the Pope, and the weakness of the King, would be monstrous now-a-days, but they were scarcely strange then. Roberts' two servants not only threw into the fire what he left at his meals, but purified by fire the vessels in which he had been served. And as to the monstrous birth, is such a thing incredible? "Croirat-on," says St. Foix (cuv. T. iii. p. 51.) 66 que, par le plus abominable complot, dans l'idée d'obliger ce prince à se soumettre, & pour fortifier en même temps "parmi le peuple, la terreur qu' inspiroient les excommuni

cations, on substitua ce monstre à la place du veritable "enfant? Il est plus naturel de penser, qu'une masse de "chair d'une figure bizarre à pu se former au sein d'une "femme devorée de chagrin pendant sa grossesse, & dont "l'imagination & la conscience étoient troublées par les tr menaces du pape." Was it probable that (in 1077) an Emperor of Germany should stand three days, bare-footed, at the gate of the Pope's Castle, imploring pardon?

Page 208. "He (William the Conqueror) is also re"proached with having destroyed all the villages within the 66 compass of fifteen leagues, to make a forest, in which he "might enjoy the pleasure of hunting. Such an action is "too absurd to be probable. Historians do not consider,

* Russell, in his history of modern Europe (vol. i. p. 153.) considere the whole story authentic, except the monstrous birth.