the Understanding: "that all theological knowledge was nobler and better preserved among the Chaldeans than among the Egyptians; that the latter clouded it much by their hieroglyphics; that it grew still more clouded and depraved among the Greeks; and received its last and worst corruption among the Romans." If this was well made out, it might be of good service to show the necessity and propriety of the time in which our Saviour came into the world to instruct mankind.*-Spence.

There is the same difference between Corneille and Racine, as there is between un homme de génie and un homme d'esprit. Corneille has more fire than Racine, bolder strokes, and in some things is not unlike our Shakespeare. Racine's tragedies are all good; and as to Corneille's, even his greatest enemies would allow six of his to be so.-Ramsay.

The archbishop of Cambray used to say, that Racine's Athalie was the most complete piece he ever read; and that in his opinion there was nothing among the ancients, not even in Sophocles, equal to it.-R.

Since the translation of Paradise Lost into French, Milton begins to be greatly admired at Paris, even the Cardinal Polignac used to think, that most of the high things we said of him were overstrained and out of partiality. The cardinal was convinced at once, on an English gentleman's sending him only the contents of each book

* All the deities of the Greeks are to be reduced to three; and those three signify the power, wisdom, and goodness of the one great Being.-Venus was heavenly love, she was called Urania: the Greeks made a terrestrial Venus of the froth of the sea : and the same happened in many other cases.-Note by Mr. Spence from MS. B.

translated into French.

"The man,"

," said he, "who could contrive such a plan, must be one of the greatest poets that ever was born."-R.

Ramsay's Cyrus was translated by Mr. Hooke in twenty days. Mr. Hooke was then at Bath for his health; and Dr. Cheyne's brother was so good as to write for him. Hooke walked about the chamber and dictated to him; so that it was a sort of exercise as well as study. He always took the first expressions; and if a passage did not fall readily into English to his mind, he marked the place; and went on to the next passage, to keep up his warmth and freedom. Might not this be one reason of its being so generally mistaken for an original for a good while after it was published? Almost everybody then, and many still imagine, that Ramsay himself had written it in English, as well as in French.*- -R

Bianchini had made several steps toward discovering the parallax of the stars, many years before Cassini began upon it. He was making those observations no less than twelve years from modern buildings, before he found that they were not fit for points of such nicety and exactness. He then followed them for fifteen years more, from the top of one of the old Roman buildings; and had carried them on with as much accuracy as possible, when Cassini offered his discoveries to the public. What hindred Bianchini from publishing was (as he said), the restraint of the country: and indeed nobody, yet in Rome, dares assert roundly that the earth moves and not the sun.-R.

The French philosophers at present chiefly follow Male* Hooke corrected and altered many things in translating by Ramsay's allowance. It was translated from the MS. copy.Note by Mr. Spence from his papers.

branche. They admire Sir Isaac Newton very much, but don't yet allow of his great principle: it is his particular reasonings, experiments, and penetration, for which they so much admire him.-R.

Lesley, after all the pains he had taken to convert the Chevalier de St. George, thought latterly that he might very well have spared himself so much trouble.-He said, a little before he died, that it was scarce worth while to make a convert from either of the religions to the other.-R.

They are strangely distracted (in France) between the Jansenists and Molinists. Soon after I came into the Archbishop of Cambray's family, I asserted, at his table, that Homer was a Molinist; everybody stared at the assertion: but after, when I referred them to the remarkable speech of Jupiter in the beginning of the Odyssey, they allowed I had reason for what I said.-R. [Addition from MS. B.]

Cardinal Fleury says of the young king, (Louis XV.) that," he has nothing shining; but that he has mighty good solid sense, and judges very well of things." In short, he can make the child do anything he has a mind to.-R.

The king ordered one of his attendants to give the black boy (who brought up the noblemen's hats) a livre: the gentleman said so as to be heard by the king; "this Louis d'or the king gives you, and I this livre."-R. [Addition from MS. B.]

The queen is an extreme good woman. She very little regards pomp; and gives away most of her moderate allowance (about five hundred pounds a month, for what we call pin money,) in charities. The king does not much care for her, but the cardinal often makes him say kind things to her.-R.

When the king was a child, he showed a good deal of cruelty in his disposition; he delighted chiefly in tormenting the animals he had to play with; he would cripple one, and put out the eyes of another. This much alarmed some people; at first, they were very apprehensive that he might be as barbarous to men, as he was to his birds, when he should come to have them as much in his power as his playthings. However it seems pretty well off at present; and it may perhaps have been a very prudent thing that they gave him such a turn to hunting: for that may possibly have diverted those passions to that fashionable persecution of animals, which might else have fallen upon his subjects.-R.

What sort of man is the present pope? (Benedict XIII.) -He is a good weak man, who delights in the trifles of religion; and has no notion at all of the true spirit of it.-R.

Not one of the Jesuits who have been turned out of their schools or houses, was ever known to write or speak anything which might disgrace their order.-R.

Why was the French church so very angry with Father Courayer, for so charitable a work as writing on the validity of our Ordinations?-Because they re-ordain any English ecclesiastic that comes over to them; and consequently, to allow his doctrine, would be to give up the greatest point of all, the infallibility of the church.-R.

When the celebrated Father Bourdelot (who has sometimes been called the French Tillotson) was to preach once on a Good-Friday, and the proper officer came to attend him to church; his servants said that he was in his study, and that if he pleased he might go up to him. In going

up stairs he heard the sound of a violin; and as the door stood a little a-jar, he saw Bourdelot stripped into his cassock, playing a good brisk tune, and dancing to it about his study. He was extremely concerned, for he esteemed that great man highly, and thought he must be run distracted. However at last he ventured to rap gently at the door. The father immediately laid down his violin, hurried on his gown, came to him (and with his usual composed and pleasing look), said; "Oh, sir, is it you? I hope I have not made you stay; I am quite ready to attend you." The poor man, as they were going down, could not help mentioning his surprise at what he had heard and seen. Bourdelot smiled, and said: "Indeed you might well be a little surprised, if you don't know anything of my way on these occasions; but the whole of the matter was this: in thinking over the subject of the day, I found my spirits too much depressed to speak as I ought to do; so had recourse to my usual method of music and a little motion. It has had its effect, I am quite in a proper temper; and go now with pleasure, to what I should else have gone to in pain.”—R.

Each of the four columns that support the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, takes up as much ground as a little chapel and convent,* in which one of the architects employed in that work lived; and yet they do not appear big to the eye, because everything is great about them.-They were designed by Michael Angelo, and he insisted earnestly that nothing should be added or altered in his design. Bernini afterwards undertook to make a staircase within each of these columns; just as they had hollowed and prepared the inside of one of them,* the whole building gave a crash;

* St. Silvester's by the Quatre Fontane.