they were, in appearance at least, reconciled with orthodoxy. Bolingbroke's writings against revealed religion were bequeathed by him to his friend DAVID MALLET, the publisher and an unbeliever, who brought them out, together with Bolingbroke's other works, in 1754. Mallet, who died in 1765, was himself an author, but is now chiefly known by his Ballads, of which William and Margaret is the most striking and beautiful. It was to Mallet's house that Gibbon was taken by his father, when he had embraced Catholicism at Oxford, with the view of weaning him from his new faith. § 10. A similarly irreligious tendency is objected to the essays of BERNARD MANDEVILLE (1670-1733), a physician and voluminous writer, remarkable for the boldness of his theories and the vivacity with which he supported them. The most celebrated of his productions is the Fable of the Bees, in which he endeavors to prove that private vices may be public benefits, or, in other words, that the play of human passions and propensities, however immoral or flagitious some of them may be in the relations between man and man, works unconsciously and harmoniously towards the welfare of that complex body which we call society. In this theory there is undoubtedly much that is true, for the limits between virtue and vice are so fluctuating, when viewed in a general or social point of view, that the suppression of what is beyond the middle line on the one side would be as fatal to the existence of society, nay, of humanity itself, as the annihilation of what is beyond it on the other. Society would be as inconceivable without the existence of vice, as it would be impossible without the existence of virtue. § 11. The chief opponent of Mandeville was the accomplished and almost ideally virtuous BISHOP Berkeley (1684-1753), equally famous for the evangelic benevolence of his character and the acuteness of his genius. His mind was ever full of projects for increasing the virtue and happiness of his fellow-creatures; and the Utopian character of some of these plans only proves the intensity of his philanthropic humanity. One of them was the establishment of a sort of missionary college in the Bermudas, for the purpose of converting and civilizing the Carib savages. He was made Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, and presents one of the rare instances of a prelate, out of pure love for his flock and an unaffected contentment with his lot, obstinately refusing any further promotion. His writings are exceedingly numerous, and embrace a wide field of moral and metaphysical discussion. He is one of the most brilliant, as well as one of the earliest maintainers of the extreme spiritualistic theory, and thus in some degree an opponent of Locke. His celebrated argument that we have no more grounds for doubting the existence of spirit than we have for denying the existence of matter has been perverted or exaggerated by people who talk loosely into a supposition that he argued against the existence of matter altogether. The truth is, that in investigating the very obscure and arduous question of the nature of that evidence upon which we base our convictions of material objects external to and independent of our selves, he has shown to how much abuse that conviction is liable when once we apply the evidence to the establishment of a metaphysical proof. Berkeley frequently wrote in the form of dialogue, which indeed, as the great examples of Plato and Cicero prove, is well adapted to the purpose of philosophical discussion: and one of the most characteristic and popular of his works is entitled The Minute Philosopher. In the connection between the physical and metaphysical branches of investigation, Berkeley's writings occupy an important place: thus his Theory of Vision established several valuable facts, and drew conclusions from several striking phenomena, concerning that subtle subject. In all his arguments his aim was to refute the materialist theoricians; but in his eagerness to do this he has sometimes involuntarily struck at the very root of those notions which are indispensable to all reasoning, as when he describes ideas as something foreign to or independent of the mind; whereas the only conceivable mode of accounting for the existence of ideas is to suppose that they are states or modifications of the mind, or rather impressions, more or less permanent, made upon the thinking faculty itself. § 12. The last author whom I shall mention in the present chapter is LADY MARY MONTAGU (1690-1762), the most brilliant letter-writer of this period, when Pope and many other distinguished men of letters assiduously cultivated the epistolary form of composition. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and celebrated, even from her childhood, as Lady Mary Pierrepont, for the vivacity of her intellect, her precocious intellectual acquirements, and the beauty and graces of her person. Her education had been far more extensive and solid than was then usually given to women: her acquaintance with history, and even with Latin, was considerable, and her studies had been in some degree directed by Bishop Burnet. She was, even as a clever and beautiful child, the pet and darling of the accomplished Whig society of the day, and she has recorded the intense delight she felt at the admiration of the members of the Kit-cat Club, by whom she was elected a toast. In 1712 she married Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, a grave and saturnine diplomatist, with whose character the sprightly and airy woman of fashion and literature could have had nothing in common. companied her husband on his embassy to the court of Constantinople, and described her travels over Europe and the East in those delightful Letters which have given her in English literature a place resembling that of Madame de Sévigné in the literature of France. Lady Mary was the first traveller who gave a familiar, picturesque, and animated account of Oriental society, particularly of the internal life and manners of the Seraglio, to which her sex and her high position gave her unusual facilities of access. She returned from her travels in 1718, and separating, with mutual consent, from her husband, again went abroad, and resided in Italy till his death: this portion of her life embraced a period from 1739 to 1761. She then returned to her native country, where she died in the following year. Her family life, not only with She ac relation to her husband, but still more so with regard to her only son, was uncomfortable and unhappy. The latter was a man whose talents were considerable, but whose vices and eccentricities were such as to justify the supposition of madness, and his career was one of the most extraordinary adventure and singularity. Lady Mary, however, was of a cold and unimpressionable nature, and seems to have borne her private misfortunes with philosophical equanimity. She was perhaps in some degree indemnified for the pain her son's conduct gave her, by the affection of her daughter, for whom she probably felt as much tenderness as she had to bestow, and to whom some of her liveliest and most amusing letters are addressed. Admirable common sense, observation, vivacity, extensive reading without a trace of pedantry, and a pleasant tinge of half-playful sarcasm, are the qualities which distinguish her correspondence. The style is perfection: the simplicity and natural elegance of the high-born and high-bred lady combined with the ease of the thorough woman of the world. The moral tone, indeed, is far from being high, for neither the character nor the career of Lady Mary had been such as to cherish a very scrupulous delicacy. But she had seen so much, and had been brought into contact with so many remarkable persons, and in a way that gave her unusual means of judging of them, that she is always sensible and amusing. I have compared her to Madame de Sévigné, but the differences between the two charming writers are no less striking than the resemblances. In Lady Mary there is no trace of that intense and even morbid maternal affection which breathes through every line of the letters addressed to Madame de Grignan; nor is there any of that fetish-like worship of the court which seems to pervade everything written in the chilling and tinsel atmosphere that surrounded Louis XIV. In wit, animation, and the power of hitting off, by a few felicitous touches, a character or a scene, it is difficult to assign the palm of superiority. Lady Mary was unquestionably a woman of far higher intellectual calibre, and of a much wider literary development. She can reason and draw inferences where Madame de Sévigné can only gossip, though it must be allowed that her gossip is the most delicious in the world. The successful introduction of inoculation for the smallpox is mainly to be attributed to the intelligence and courage of Lady Mary Montagu, who not only had the courage to try the experiment upon her own child, but with admirable constancy resisted the furious opposition of bigotry and ignorance against the bold innovation. She was at one time the intimate friend of Pope, and the object of his most ardent adulation; but a violent quarrel occurred between them, supposed to have originated in a rather warm outburst of admiration on the part of the poet, received by the great lady, as might indeed have been expected when we consider Pope's personal peculiarities, with a contemptuous ridicule which transformed his admiration into the bitterest and most persevering malignity. She was the author of a small miscellaneous collection of poems, exhibiting the ease, regularity, and fluency which generally marked the lighter verses of that day, and also a rather lax and epicurean tone of philosophy, which is sometimes expressed with inimitable felicity. Nothing can more strongly mark the wide difference between the social condition of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than a comparison between the tone and the topics of the admirable Memoirs of Lucy Hutchinson, and the gay, worldly, satirical letters of Lady Mary Montagu. Both the one and the other are types of the female character as modified by the respective influences of the two so strongly-contrasted epochs. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. A.-MINOR ESSAYISTS, &c. EUSTACE BUDGELL (1685–1736), a friend of Addison, who obtained for him many important posts under Government. He contributed to the Spectator all the papers marked with the letter X. Having lost almost his whole fortune in the South Sea scheme, and large sums of money in unsuccessful attempts to obtain a seat in Parliament, he became a ruined man. He was accused of having forged in his favor Tindal's Will, a charge to which Pope alludes in the lines, "Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on my quill, And write whate'er he please-except my will." Budgell was supposed to have assisted Tindal in his infidel works. His circumstances having become desperate, Budgell committed suicide, by leaping from a boat into the Thames. In his house was found a slip of paper, on which he had written "What Cato did, and Addison approved, Cannot be wrong." their arguments was published by Sir William Temple in 1692, in his Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning, written in elegant language, but containing much puerile matter, and exhibiting great credulity. Not content with pointing out the undoubted merits of the great writers of antiquity, he undervalued the labors and discoveries of the moderns, and passed over Shakspeare, Milton, and Newton without even mentioning their names. A far abler and an impartial estimate of the controversy was made by Wotton in his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, published in 1694. WILLIAM WOTTON (1666-1726) had been a boy of astonishing precocity, and was admitted in his tenth year to Catherine Hall, Cambridge. When he took his degree, at the age of thirteen, he was acquainted with twelve languages. In his “ Reflections" he discusses the subject with great impartiality and learning; and, while assigning to the ancients their real merits, he points out the superiority of the moderns in physical science. Sir William Temple, in his Essay, among other Budgell published a weekly periodical called the arguments for the decay of humor, wit, and learnBee. JOHN HUGHES (1677-1720) contributed some papers to the Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian. He also published some miscellaneous poems, a tragedy called the Siege of Damascus, several translations from the French, and an edition of Spenser's Works. TOM BROWN (d. 1704) and TOM D'URFEY (d. 1723), two facetious but immoral writers, frequently mentioned in the lighter literature of the period. D'URFEY Wrote several plays of a licentious character. In No. 67 of the Guardian Addison solicits his readers to attend a play for D'Urfey's benefit. B.-BOYLE AND BENTLEY CONTRO VERSY. This celebrated controversy, which has been alluded to more than once in the preceding chapters, arose out of another upon the comparative merits of the ancient and modern writers. The dispute had its origin in France, where Fontenelle and Perrault claimed for the moderns a general superiority over the writers of antiquity. A reply to ing, had maintained "that the oldest books extant were still the best in their kind;" and in proof of this assertion had cited the Fables of sop and the Epistles of Phalaris. This led to the publication of a new edition of the Epistles of Phalaris by the scholars of Christ-Church, Oxford (1695). The nominal editor was Charles Boyle, brother of the Earl of Orrery, who, in his Preface, inserted a bitter reflection upon RICHARD BENTLEY (1662–1742), the King's Librarian, on account of the supposed refusal of the latter to grant him the loan of a MS. in the King's Library. Bentley, who appears to have been unjustly blamed in this matter, soon had an opportunity of retaliation. In the second edition of Wotton's Reflections, published in 1697, Bentley added a dissertation, in the form of letters to his friend, in which he proved that the author of the Epistles of Phalaris was not the Sicilian tyrant, but some sophist of a later age. Sir William Temple, who had been greatly annoyed at Wotton's Reflections, was still more incensed at Bentley's Dissertation; and Swift, who then resided in Temple's house, made his first attack upon Bentley in the Battle of the Books, in which he ridiculed the great scholar in the most ludicrous manner; though the work was not printed till some years after. At Christ Church the indignation was, if possible, even greater. Bentley's attack was considered an affront to the whole College, and it was resolved to crush, at once and forever, the audacious assailant. All the strength of Christ Church was enlisted in the contest; but the chief task of the reply was undertaken by Atterbury. He was assisted by George Smalridge, Robert Friend, afterwards head-master of Westminster School, his brother John Friend, and Anthony Alsop. "In point of classical learning," observes the biographer of Bentley, "the jointstock of the confederacy bore no proportion to that of Bentley; their acquaintance with several of the books upon which they comment appears only to have begun upon that occasion, and sometimes they are indebted for their knowledge of them to their adversary; compared with his boundless erudition, their learning was that of school-boys, and not always sufficient to preserve them from distressing mistakes. It may be doubtful whether Busby himself, by whom every one of the confederate band had been educated, possessed knowledge which could have qualified him to enter the lists in such a controversy." But their deficiency in learning they made up by wit and raillery; and when the book appeared, in 1698, it was received with extravagant applause. It was entitled Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Esop, examined by the Honorable Charles Boyle, Esq. It is usually known by the familiar title of Boyle against Bentley; though Boyle, whose name it bears, had no share in the composition of the work. It was generally supposed that Bentley was silenced and crushed. "All accounts agree in stating the applause which the book met with to have been loud and universal; and the general interest excited by this controversy, properly a business of dry learning, appears to us almost incredible. This state of public feeling is attributable in some degree to the vein of wit and satire which pervades the Christ Church performance, but still more to extraneous causes. The numbers and ability of the members of that distinguished society, who appear to have felt as one man in this common cause, had a powerful influence over public opinion. Again, the extreme popularity of Sir W. Temple, who was represented as rudely attacked, and the interest excited in behalf of Mr. Boyle, a young scholar of noble birth, who appeared in the field of controversy as the champion of an accomplished veteran, disposed people at all hazards to favor his cause. Added to this, an opinion which had been industriously circulated of Bentley's incivility, and a certain haughty carriage which undoubtedly belonged to him, gave a violent prejudice to the public mind. Severe and accurate erudition being rare in those days, people were so far deluded as to believe that on most, if not all points, Boyle was successful: we learn from Bentley himself, that the book was at first generally regarded as unanswerable; and this even anong his own friends. Nobody suspected that he would venture to reply; still less that he could ever again hold up his head in the republic of learning: the blow was thought to be fatal; and many persons, as usual, cagerly joined the cry against the devoted critic."- (Monk's Life of Bentley, i. p. 108.) Among the many other attacks made upon Bentley at this period, the only one which continues to be known is Swift's Battle of the Books, in which he pours forth upon Bentley all the embittered vehemence of his satire. In the midst of this outcry Bentley remained unmoved. Conscious of his own learning, he could afford to despise the ignorant malice of his enemies; and he set himself resolutely to work to prepare an answer, which should not only silence his opponents, but establish his reputation as one of the greatest scholars that ever lived. His work appeared in 1699, under the title of A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris: with an Answer to the Objections of the Hon. Robert Boyle, by Richard Bentley, D. D.; but it is frequently called Bentley against Boyle. "The appearance of this work is to be considered an epoch not only in the life of Bentley, but in the history of literature. The victory obtained over his opponents, although the most complete that can be imagined, constitutes but a small part of the merits of this performance. Such is the author's address, that, while every page is professedly controversial, there is embodied in the work a quantity of accurate information relative to history, chronology, antiquities, philology, and criticism, which it would be difficult to match in any other volume. The cavils of the Boyleans had fortunately touched upon so many topics, as to draw from their adversary a mass of learning, none of which is misplaced or superfluous: he contrives, with admirable judgment, to give the reader all the information which can be desired upon each question, while he never loses sight of his main object. Profound and various as are the sources of his learning, everything is so well arranged, and placed in so clear a view, that the student who is only in the elementary parts of classical literature may peruse the book with profit and pleasure, while the most learned reader cannot fail to find his knowledge enlarged. Nor is this merely the language of those who are partial to the author; the eminently learned Dodwell, who had no peculiar motive to be pleased with a work by which he was himself a considerable sufferer, and who as a nonjuror was prejudiced against Bentley's party, is recorded to have avowed 'that he had never learned so much from any book in his life.' This learned volume owes much of its attraction to the strain of humor, which makes the perusal highly entertaining. The advocates of Phalaris, having chosen to rely upon wit and raillery, were now made to feel in their turn the consequences of the warfare which they had adopted. So well sustained is the learning, the wit, and the spirit of this production, that it is not possible to select particular parts as objects of admiration, without committing a sort of injustice to the rest. And the book itself will long continue to be in the hands of all educated persons, as long as literature maintains its hold in society."- (Monk's Life of Bentley, i. pp. 120-123.) With this dissertation the controversy came to an end, for Bentley's reply was so complete and crushing that it was hopeless to attempt a rejoinder. Sir William Temple died a few weeks before the publication of Bentley's work, and was thus spared the |