for an altar-piece? There have been inftances of painters, who before they began to work, have always received the facrament. Neither Dante, Ariofto, nor Taffo, flourished in free governments; and it seems * chimerical to affert, that Milton would never have written his Paradife Loft, if he had not feen monarchy destroyed, and the state thrown into disorder. Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Julio Romano, lived in defpotic ftates. The fine arts, in fhort, are naturally attendant upon power and luxury. But the sciences require unlimited freedom, to raise them to their full vigour and growth. In a MoNARCHY, there may be poets, painters, and musicians; but orators, hiftorians, and philofophers, can exift in a REPUBLIC alone.

44. A fecond deluge learning thus o'er-run,

And the monks finish'd what the Goths begun f.

EVERY custom and opinion that can degrade and deform humanity, was to be found

* See ENQUIRY into the Life and Writings of Homer, Sect. v. pag. 67.

+ Ver. 692.

in the times here alluded to. The most cruel tyranny, and the groffeft fuperftition, reigned without controul. Men seemed to have loft not only the light of learning, but of their common reafon. Duels, divinations, the ordeal, and all the oppreffive cuftoms of the feudal laws, were univerfally practiced: witchcraft, poffeffions, revelations, and aftrology*, were generally believed. The clergy were fo ignorant, that in fome of the most folemn acts of fynods, fuch words as these are to be found: " As my lord bishop "cannot write himself, at his request I have

fubfcribed." They were at that time fo profligate, as to publish Abfolutions for any one who had killed his father, mother, fifter,

Even fo late as the reign of Charles V. we are informed by Christana of Pifa, that her father, who was the king's aftrologer, foretold his death to a moment, in the year 1380. This aftrologer was fo highly in favour, and esteemed of such importance, as to have a monthly penfion of an hundred livres; a confiderable fum for that time.

+ They celebrated in many churches, particularly at Rouen, what was called, the FEAST OF THE ASS. On this occafion, the Ass, finely dreft, was brought before the altar, and they fung before him this elegant anthem, "Eh eh eh Sire ANE! eh eh eh Sire ANE!

or

or wife; or had committed the most enormous pollutions. On a furvey of these abfurd abominations, one is apt to cry out in the emphatical words of Lucretius,

Quæ procul a NOBIS flectat Fortuna gubernans

But we may reft fecure, if the observation of an acute writer be true, who fays, "Europe will perhaps behold ages of a bad taste, but will never again relapse into barbarism. The fole invention of printing has forbidden that event *". The only sparks of literature that then remained, were to be found among the mahometans, and not the chriftians. It was from the ARABIANS that we received aftronomy, chemistry, medicine, algebra, and arithmetic. Albategni, a Saracen, fome of whose manuscripts are now repofited in the Bodleian library at Oxford, made aftronomical obfervations in the year 880. Our Almanack, AL-MANAC, is an Arabic word. The great church at Cordova in Spain, where the Saracens kept a magnificent court, is a

* Mes PEN S'E E s, par M. Beaumelle, cccLxv.

monument of their fkill in architecture. The game of chefs, that admirable effort of the human mind, was by them invented; as were tilts and tournaments. Averroes tranf

lated, and commented upon, the greatest part of Ariftotle's works *, and was the introducer of that author's philosophy into the west. It was Gerbert, who in the reign of Hugh Capet, is faid to have introduced into France, the Arabian and Indian cypher: for the Arabians had borrowed from the Indians this manner of computing, and Gerbert learned it from the Saracens, when he made a journey into Spain. Gerbert also undertook to make the first clock, the motion of which was regulated by a balance; which method was made ufe of till the year 1650, when they began to place a pendulum in

*I have feen a translation of his Comment on the Poetics, with this title. " AVERROYS Summa in Ariftotelis Poeticam; ex Arabico fermone in Latinum traducta ab Hermano Alemano. Præmittitur Determinatio IBINROSDIN [another Arabian writer] in Poetria Ariftotelis. Venetiis, apud Georgium Arrivabenum, 1515."

From Sadi, an Arabian Poet, Milton took the grand idea of the bridge over chaos.

ftead

ftead of the balance. "Can it be believed, fays Mr. Henault, that there ever was fo little intercourfe between the provinces of France, that an abbot of Clugni, being invited by Bouchard Count of Paris, to bring his Religious to St. Maurdes-Foffés, excused himself from making fo long a journey, into a country UNKNOWN, and to which he was fo much a STRANGER?" Charlemagne, indeed, two centuries before this last mentioned time, had endeavoured to bring civility and learning into France: he introduced the Gregorian chant, and established a * school in his palace, where the famous Alcuin, whom he invited from England, instructed the Youth. Each of the members of this academy took a particular name; and Charlemagne himself, who did it the honour to become one of it's members, affumed that of David. This attempt to civilize his barbarous fubjects, was as arduous, and worthy his great genius, as his noble project to open

* He is faid to have founded the university of Paris. Twyne's Antiq. Acad. Oxon. Apolog. edit. 1608. pag. 158, et feq. a communication