Miscellanea.  
THE SECOND PART.  
In Four ESSAYS.  

I. Upon Ancient and Modern Learning.  
II. Upon the Gardens of Epicurus.  
III. Upon Heroic Virtue.  
IV. Upon Poetry.   
BY Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE BARONET.  
— Juvat antiquos accedere Fontes.  
The Second Edition.  
London, Printed by I. R. for Ri. and Ra. Simpson, at the Sign of the Harp in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1690.   

Almae Matri Academiae Cantabrigiensi Has qualescunque Nugas At Rei Literariae non alienas D. D. Dque ALUMNUS olim Et semper Observantissimus  
W. TEMPLE.   
MISCELLANEA.  

An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning.  
WHoever Converses much among the Old Books, will be something hard to please among the New; yet these must have their Part too in the leisure of an idle Man, and have many of them, their Beauties as well as their Defaults. Those of Story, or Relations of matter of Fact, have a value from their Substance, as much as from their Form, and the variety of Events, is seldom without Entertainment or Instruction, how indifferently soever the Tale is told. Other sorts of Writings have little of esteem, but what they receive from the Wit, Learning, or Genius of the Authors, and are seldom met with of any excellency, because they do but trace over the Paths that have been beaten by the Ancients or Comment Critic and Flourish upon them; and are at best but Copies after those Originals, unless upon Subjects never touched by them; such as are all that relate to the different Constitutions of Religions, Laws, or Governments in several Countries, with all matters of Controversy that arise upon them.  
Two Pieces that have lately pleased me (abstracted from any of these Subjects) are, one in English upon the Antideluvian World; and another in French, upon the Plurality of Worlds; one Writ by a Divine, and the other by a Gentleman, but both very finely in their several Kind's, and upon their several Subjects, which would have made very poor work in common hands: I was so pleased with the last (I mean the Fashion of it, rather than the Matter, which is old and beaten) that I enquired for what else I could of the same hand, till I met with a small Piece concerning Poesy, which gave me the same exception to both these Authors, whom I should otherwise have been very partial to. For the first, could not end his Learned Treatise, without a Panegyric of Modern Learning, and Knowledge in comparison of the Ancient: And the other falls so grossly into the censure of the Old Poetry, and preference of the New, that I could not read either of these Strains, without some indignation, which no quality among Men is so apt to raise in me as Sufficiency, the worst composition out of the pride and ignorance of Mankind. But these two, being not the only Persons of the Age that defend these Opinions, it may be worth examining how far either Reason or Experience can be allowed to plead or determine in their favour.  
The Force of all that I have met with upon this Subject, either in Talk or Writing, is, First, as to Knowledge, That we must have more than the Ancients, because we have the advantage both of theirs and our own, which is commonly illustrated by the Similitude of a Dwarves standing upon a Giant's Shoulders, and seeing more or farther than he. Next, as to Wit or Genius, that Nature being still the same, these must be much at a Rate in all Ages, at least in the same Climates, as the Growth and Size of Plants and Animals commonly are: And if both these are allowed, they think the Cause is gained. But I cannot tell why we should conclude, that the Ancient Writers had not as much Advantage from the Knowledge of others, that were Ancient to them, as we have from those that are Ancient to us. The Invention of Printing, has not perhaps multiplied Books, but only the Copies of them; and if we believe there were Six Hundred Thousand in the Library of Ptolemy, we shall hardly pretend to equal it by any of ours, nor perhaps, by all put together; I mean so many Originals, that have lived any time, and thereby given Testimony of their having been thought worth preserving. For the Scribbles are infinite, that like Mushrooms or Flies, are born and die in small circles of time; whereas Books like Proverbs, receive their Chief Value from the Stamp and Esteem of Ages through which they have passed. Besides, the account of this Library at Alexandria, and others very Voluminous in the lesser Asia and Rome, we have frequent mention of Ancient Writers in many of those Books which we now call Ancient, both Philosophers and Historians. 'Tis true, that besides what we have in Scripture concerning the Original and Progress of the Jewish Nation; all that passed in the rest of our World before the Trojan War, is either sunk in the depths of Time, wrapped up in the Mysteries of Fables, or so maimed by the want of Testimonies and loss of Authors, that it appears to us in too obscure a light, to make any Judgement upon it. For the Fragments of Manethon about the Antiquities of Egypt, the Relations in Justin concerning the Scythian Empire, and many others in Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as well as the Records of China, make such Excursions beyond the periods of Time given us by the Holy Scriptures, that we are not allowed to Reason upon them. And this disagreement itself after so great a part of the World became Christian, may have contributed to the loss of many ancient Authors. For Solomon tells us even in his time, of Writing many Books there was no end; and whoever considers the Subject and the Style of Job, which by many is thought more ancient than Moses, will hardly think it was Written in an Age or Country that wanted either Books or Learning; and yet he speaks of the Ancients then and their Wisdom as we do now.  
But if any should so very rashly and presumptuously conclude, That there were few Books before those we have either Extant or upon Record; yet that cannot argue there was no Knowledge or Learning before those periods of Time, whereof they give us the short account. Books may be helps to Learning and Knowledge, and make it more common and diffused; but I doubt, whether they are necessary ones or no, or much advance any other Science, beyond the particular Records of Actions or Registers of Time; and these perhaps, might be as long preserved without them, by the care and exactness of Tradition in the long Successions of certain Races of Men, with whom they were entrusted. So in Mexico and Peru, before the least use or mention of Letters, there was remaining among them, the knowledge of what had passed in those mighty Nations and Governments for many Ages. Whereas in Ireland, that is said to have flourished in Books and Learning before they had much Progress in Gaul or Brittany; there are now hardly any Traces left of what passed there, before the Conquest made of that Country by the English in Henry the Second Time. A strange but plain Demonstration, how Knowledge and Ignorance, as well as Civility and Barbarism, may succeed in the several Countries in the World, how much better the Records of Time may be kept by Tradition in one Country than Writing in another; and how much we owe to those Learned Languages of Greek and Latin, without which, for aught I know, the World in all these Western Parts, would hardly be known to have been above five or six Hundred Years old, nor any certainty remain of what passed in it before that time.  
'Tis true, in the Eastern Regions, there seems to have been a general Custom of the Priests in each Country; having been either by their own Choice, or by Design of the Governments, the perpetual Conservers of Knowledge and Story. Only in China, this last was committed particularly to certain Officers of State, who were appointed or continued upon every accession to that Crown, to Register distinctly the times and memorable Events of each Reign. In Ethiopia, Egypt, Caldea, Persia, Syria, Judea, these Cares were committed wholly to the Priests, who were not less diligent in the Registers of Times and Actions, than in the Study and Successive Propagation thereby of all Natural Science and Philosophy. Whether this was managed by Letters, or Tradition, or by both; 'tis certain the Ancient Colleges, or Societies of Priests, were mighty Reservoirs or Lakes of Knowledge, into which, some Streams entered perhaps every Age, from the Observations or Inventions of any great Spirits or transcendent Genius's, that happened to rise among them: And nothing was lost out of these Stores, since the part of conserving what others have gained, either in Knowledge or Empire, is as common and easy, as the other is hard and rare among Men.  
In these soils were planted and cultivated those mighty growths of Astronomy, Astrology, Magic, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, and Ancient Story. From these Sources, Orpheus, Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Plato, and others of the Ancients, are acknowledged to have drawn all those Depths of Knowledge or Learning, which have made them so renowned in all succeeding Ages. I make a Distinction between these Two, taking Knowledge to be properly meant of things that are generally agreed to be true by Consent of those that first found them out or have been since instructed in them; but Learning is the Knowledge of the different and contested Opinions of Men in former Ages, and about which they have perhaps never agreed in any; and this makes so much of one, and so little of the other in the World.  
Now to judge, Whether the Ancients or Moderns, can be probably thought to have made the greatest Progress in the Search and Discoveries of the vast Region of Truth and Nature; it will be worth enquiring, What Guides have been used, and what Labours employed by the one and the other in these Noble Travels and Pursuits.  
The Modern Scholars have their usual Recourse to the Universities of their Countries; some few it may be to those of their Neighbours; and this, in quest of Books rather than Men for their Guides, though these are living, and those in comparison, but dead Instructors; which like an Hand with an Inscription, can point out the strait way upon the Road, but can neither tell you the next Turnings, resolve your Doubts, or answer your Questions, like a Guide that has traced it over, and perhaps knows it as well as his Chamber. And who are these dead Guides we seek in our Journey? They are at best but some few Authors that remain among us, of a great many that wrote in Greek and Latin, from the Age of Hypocrates to that of Marcus Antoninus, which reaches not much above Six Hundred Years. Before that time I know none, besides some Poets, some Fables, and some few Epistles; and since that time, I know very few that can pretend to be Authors, rather than Transcribers or Commentators of the Ancient Learning: Now to consider at what Sources our Ancients drew their Water, and with what unwearied Pains: 'Tis evident Thales and Pythagoras were the Two Founders of the Grecian Philosophy; the First, gave beginning to the jonick Sect, and the other to the Italic; out of which, all the others celebrated in Greece or Rome were derived or composed: Thales was the First of the Sophi, or Wise Men, Famous in Greece; and is said to have learned his Astronomy, Geometry, Astrology, Theology, in his Travels from his Country Miletus, to Egypt, Phoenicia, Crete, and Delphos: Pythagoras was the Father of Philosophers, and of the Virtues, having in Modesty, chosen the Name of a Lover of Wisdom rather than of Wise; and having first introduced the Names of the Four Cardinal Virtues, and given them the Place and Rank they have held ever since in the World: Of these Two mighty Men remain no Writings at all; for those Golden Verses, that go under the Name of Pythagoras, are generally rejected as spurious, like many other Fragments of Sibyls or Old Poets, and some entire Poems that run with Ancient Names: Nor is it agreed, Whether he ever left any thing written to his Scholars or Contemporaries; or whether all that learned of him, did it not by the Ear and Memory; and all that remained of him, for some succeeding Ages, were not by Tradition. But whether these ever writ or no, they were the Fountains, out of which the following Greek Philosophers drew all those Streams that have since watered the Studies of the Learned World, and furnished the Voluminous Writings of so many Sects, as passed afterwards under the common Name of Philosophers.  
As there were Guides to those that we call Ancients, so there were others that were Guides to them, in whose Search they traveled far and laboured long.  
There is nothing more agreed, than, That all the Learning of the Greeks was deduced Originally from Egypt or Phoenicia; but, Whether theirs might not have flourished to that Degree it did, by the Commerce of the Aethiopians, Chaldaeans, Arabians and Indians, is not so evident, (though I am very apt to believe it) and to most of these Regions some of the Grecians traveled, in Search of those Golden Mines of Learning and Knowledge: Not to mention the Voyages of Orpheus, Musoeus, Lycurgus, Thales, Solon, Democritus, Herodotus, Plato and that vain Sophist, Apollonius, (who was but an Ape of the Ancient Philosophers) I shall only trace, those of Pythagoras, who seems of all others, to have gone the farthest upon this Design, and to have brought home the greatest Treasures. He went first to Egypt, where he spent Two and Twenty Years in Study and Conversation, among the several Colleges of Priests, in Memphis, Thebes, and Heliopolis, was initiated in all their several Mysteries, in Order to gain Admittance and Instruction, in the Learning and Sciences that were there, in their highest Ascendent. Twelve Years, He spent in Babylon, and in the Studies and Learning of the Priests or Magis of the Chaldaeans. Besides, these long abodes in those Two Regions, celebrated for ancient Learning, and where one Author, according to their Calculations, says, He gained the Observations of innumerable Ages, He traveled likewise upon the same Sent, into Aethiopia, Arabia, India, to Crete, to Delphos, and to all the Oracles that were Renowned in any of these Regions.  
What sort of Mortals, some of those may have been, that he went so far to seek, I shall only endeavour to Trace out, by the most ancient Accounts, that are given of the Indian brahmin's, since those of the Learned or Sages in the other Countries, occur more frequent in Story. These, were all of one Race or Tribe, that was kept chaste from any other mixture, and were dedicated wholly to the Service of the Gods, to the Studies of Wisdom and Nature, and to the Council of their Princes. There was not only particular care taken of their Birth and Nurture, but even from their Conception. For when a Woman among them was known to have Conceived, much thought and diligence was employed about her Diet and Entertainments, so far, as to furnish her with pleasant imaginations, to compose her mind and her sleeps, with the best temper, during the time she carried her Burden: This, I take to be a strain, beyond all the Grecian Wit, or the Constitutions even of their imaginary Lawgivers, who began their cares of Mankind, only after their Birth, and none before. Those of the brahmin's, continued in the same Degree for their Education and Instruction, in which, and their Studies, and Discipline of their Colleges, or separate abodes in Woods and Fields, they spent Thirty Seven Years. Their Learning and Institutions were unwritten, and only traditional among themselves by a perpetual Succession. Their Opinions in Natural Philosophy, were, That the World was round, That it had a beginning, and would have an end, but reckoned both by immense periods of Time; That the Author of it, was a Spirit, or a Mind, that pervaded the whole Universe, and was diffused, through all the Parts of it. They held the Transmigration of Souls, and some used discourses of Infernal Mansions, in many things, like those of Plato. Their Moral Philosophy consisted chiefly, in preventing all Diseases or Distempers of the Body, from which, they esteemed the perturbations of Mind, in a great measure to arise. Then, in composing the Mind, and exempting it from all anxious Cares, esteeming the troublesome and solicitous thoughts about Past and Future, to be like so many Dreams, and no more to be regarded. They despised both life and death, pleasure and pain, or at least thought them perfectly indifferent. Their Justice, was exact and exemplary; their Temperance so great, that they lived upon Rice or Herbs, and upon nothing, that had sensitive Life. If they fell sick, they counted it such a Mark of Intemperance, that they would frequently die, out of Shame and Sullenness, but many lived an Hundred and Fifty, and some Two Hundred Years.  
Their Wisdom was so highly esteemed, that some of them were always employed to follow the Courts of their Kings, to advise them upon all Occasions, and instruct them in Justice and Piety, and upon this Regard, Calanus and some others, are said to have followed the Camp of Alexander, after his Conquest of one of their Kings. The Magical Operations, reported of them, are so wonderful, that they must either, be wholly disbelieved, or will make easy way, for the Credit of all those, that we so often meet with, in the latter Relations of the Indies. Above all the rest, their Fortitude was most admirable, in their Patience and Endurance of all Evils, of Pain, and of Death; some standing, sitting, lying, without any Motion, whole days together, in the scorching Sun; others standing, whole nights upon one Leg, and holding up a heavy piece of Wood or Stone in both hands, without ever moving, (which might be done, upon some sort of Penances usually among them.) They frequently ended their Lives by their own Choice, and not necessity, and most usually by Fire; some upon Sickness, others upon Misfortunes, some upon mere safiety of Life; so Calanus in Alexander's Time, burnt himself publicly, upon growing old and infirm; Zormanochages, in the Time of Augustus, upon his constant Health and Felicity, and to prevent his living so long, as to fall into Diseases or Misfortunes. These were the Brachman's of India, by the most Ancient Relations remaining of them, and which Compared with our Modern, (since Navigation and Trade, have discovered so much of those vast Countries) make it easy to conjecture, that the present Baniams have derived from them, many of their Customs and Opinions, which are still very like them, after the Course of Two Thousand Years. For how long, Nations, without the Changes introduced by Conquest, may continue in the same Customs, Institutions, and Opinions, will be easily observed, in the Stories of the Peruvians and Mexicans of the Chinese and Scythians: These last, being described by Herodotus, to lodge always in Carts, and to feed commonly upon the Milk of Mares, as the Tartars are reported to do at this time, in many Parts of those Vast Northern Regions.  
From these famous Indians, it seems to me most probable, that Pythagoras learned, and transported into Greece and Italy, the greatest part, of his Natural and Moral Philosophy, rather than from the Egyptians, as is commonly supposed: For I have not observed, any mention of the Transmigration of Souls, held among the Egyptians, more ancient, than the Time of Pythagoras: On the contrary, Orpheus, is said, to have brought out of Aepypt, all his Mystical Theology, with the Stories of the Stygian Lake, Charon, the Infernal Judges, which were wrought up by the succeeding Poets (with a Mixture of the Cretan Tales or Traditions) into that Part of the Pagan Religion, so long observed by the Greeks and Romans. Now 'tis obvious, that this, was in all Parts, very different from the Pythagorean Opinion of Transmigration, which, though it was preserved long, among some of the succeeding Philosophers, yet never entered into the vulgar Belief of Greece or Italy.  
Nor does it seem unlikely, that the Egyptians themselves, might have drawn much of their Learning from the Indians, for they are observed, in some Authors, to have done it from the Aethiopians; and Chronologers I think agree, that these were a Colony, that came anciently from the River Indus, and planted themselves upon that Part of Africa, which from their Name, was afterward called Aethiopia, and in probability brought their Learning and their Customs with them. The Phoenicians, are likewise said, to have been anciently a Colony, that came from the Red-Sea, and planted themselves, upon the Mediterranean, and from thence spread so far the Fame of their Learning, and their Navigations.  
To strengthen this Conjecture, of much Learning, being derived from such remote and ancient Fountains as the Indies, and perhaps China; it may be asserted with great Evidence, that though we know little, of the Antiquities of India, beyond Alexander's time; yet those of China, are the oldest, that any where pretend to any fair Records: For these are agreed, by the Missionary Jesuits, to extend so far above Four Thousand Years, and with such Appearance of clear and undeniable Testimonies, that those Religious Men themselves, rather than question their Truth, by finding them contrary to the vulgar Chronology of the Scripture, are content to have Recourse to that of the Septuagint, and thereby, to salve the Appearances, in those Records of the Chinese. Now though we have been deprived the Knowledge, of what Course, Learning may have held, and to what heights it may have soared, in that vast Region, and during so great Antiquity of Time, by reason of the Savage Ambition of one of their Kings, who desirous to begin the Period of History from his own Reign, ordered all Books to be burnt, except those of Physic and Agriculture; so that, what we have remaining besides, of that wise and ancient Nation, is but what was either by chance, or by private Industry rescued out of that public Calamity, (among which, were a Copy of the Records and Successions of the Crown;) yet it is observable and agreed, that as the Opinions of the Learned among them are at present, so they were anciently, divided into two Sects, whereof one held the Transmigration of Souls, and the other the Eternity of Matter, comparing the World to a great Mass of Metal, out of which, some Parts are continually made up into a thousand various Figures, and after certain Periods, melted down again into the same Mass. That there were many Volumes, written of old in Natural Philosophy among them: That near the Age of Socrates, lived their Great and Renowned Confutius, who began the same Design, of reclaiming Men from the useless and endless Speculations of Nature, to those of Morality. But with this Difference, that the Bend of the Grecian, seemed to be chiefly, upon the Happiness of private Men or Families, but that of the Chinese, upon the good Temperament and Felicity of such Kingdoms or Governments, as that was, and is, known to have continued for several Thousands of Years, and may be properly called, a Government of Learned Men, since no other are admitted into Charges of the State.  
For my own Part, I am much inclined to believe, that in these Remote Regions, not only Pythagoras learned the first Principles, both of his Natural and Moral Philosophy, but that those of Democritus, (who Traveled into Egypt, Caldaea and India, and whose Doctrines were after improved by Epicurus) might have been derived from the same Fountains, and that long before them both; Lycurgus who likewise Traveled into India, brought from thence also, the Chief Principles of his Laws and Politics, so much Renowned in the World.  
For whoever observes the Account already given of the Ancient Indian, and Chinese Learning and Opinions, will easily find among them, the Seeds of all these Grecian Productions and Institutions: As the Transmigration of Souls, and the four Cardinal Virtues; The long Silence enjoined his Scholars, and Propagation of their Doctrines by Tradition, rather than Letters; and Abstinence from all Meats, that had Animal Life, introduced by Pythagoras. The Eternity of Matter, with perpetual changes of Form; the Indolence of Body, and Tranquillity of Mind, by Epicurus. And among those of Lycurgus; the Care of Education from the Birth of Children, the Austere Temperance of Diet, the patient endurance of Toil and Pain, the neglect or contempt of Life, the use of Gold and Silver only in their Temples, the Defence of Commerce with Strangers, and several others, by him established among the Spartans', seem all to be wholly Indian, and different from any Race or Vein of Thought and Imagination, that have ever appeared in Greece, either in that Age or any since.  
It may look like a Paradox to deduce Learning, from Regions accounted commonly so barbarous and rude. And 'tis true, the generality of People were always so, in those Eastern Countries, and their lives wholly turned to Agriculture, to Mechanics, or to Trades: But this does not hinder, particular Races or Successions of Men, (the design of whose thought and time was turned wholly to Learning and Knowledge) from having been, what they are represented, and what they deserve to be esteemed; since among the Gauls, the Goths, and the Peruvians themselves, there have been such Races of Men under the Names of Druids, Bards, Amautas, Runers, and other barbarous Appellations.  
Besides, I know no Circumstances, like to contribute more to the advancement of Knowledge and Learning, among Men, than exact Temperance in their Races, great pureness of Air, and equality of Climate, long Tranquillity of Empire or Government: And all these we may justly allow to those Eastern Regions, more than any others we are acquainted with, at least till the Conquests made by the Tartars, upon both India and China, in the later Centuries. However, it may be as Pardonable, to derive some parts of Learning from thence, as to go so far for the Game of Chess, which some Curious and Learned Men have deduced from India into Europe, by Two several Roads, that is, by Persia into Greece, and by Arabia into afric and Spain.  
Thus much, I thought, might be allowed me to say, for the giving some Idea, of what those Sages or Learned Men, were, or may have been, who were Ancients to those that are Ancients to us. Now to observe, what these have been, is more easy and obvious. The most ancient Grecians, that we are at all acquainted with, after Lycurgus, who was certainly a great Philosopher as well as Lawgiver, were the Seven Sages. Tho' the Court of Croesus is said to have been much resorted to, by the Sophists of Greece, in the happy beginnings of his Reign. And some of these Seven seem to have brought most of the Sciences, out of Egypt and Phoenicia, into Greece, particularly, those of Astronomy, Astrology, Geometry, and Arithmetic. These were soon followed, by Pythagoras, (who seems to have introduced Natural and Moral Philosophy) and by several of his Followers, both in Greece and Italy. But of all these, there remains nothing in Writing now among us, so that Hippocrates, Plato, and Xenophon, are the first Philosophers, whose Works have escaped the Injuries of Time. But that we may not conclude, the first Writers we have of the Grecians, were the first Learned or Wise among them. We shall find upon enquiry, that the more ancient Sages of Greece, appear by the Characters remaining of them, to have been much the greater Men. They were generally Princes or Lawgivers of their Countries, or at least offered and invited to be so, either of their own or of others, that desired them to frame or reform their several Institutions of Civil Government. They were commonly excellent Poets, and great Physicians; they were so learned in Natural Philosophy, that they foretold, not only Eclipses in the Heavens, but Earthquakes at Land, and Storms at Sea, great Drowths and great Plagues, much Plenty or much Scarcity of certain sorts of Fruits or Grain, not to mention the Magical Powers, attributed to several of them, to allay Storms, to raise Gales, to appease Commotions of People, to make Plagues cease; which qualities, whether upon any ground of Truth or no, yet if well believed, must have raised them to that strange height they were at, of common esteem and honour, in their own and succeeding Ages.  
By all this may be determined, whether our Moderns or our Ancients, may have had the greater and the better Guides, and which of them, have taken the greater pains, and with the more application in the pursuit of Knowledge. And I think, it is enough to show, that the advantage we have, from those we call the Ancients, may not be greater, than what they had, from those that were so to them.  
But after all, I do not know, whether the high flights of Wit and Knowledge, like those of Power and Empire in the World, may not have been made by the pure Native Force of Spirit or Genius, in some single men, rather than by any derived strength among them, however increased by Succession, and whether they may not have been, the Achievements of Nature, rather than the Improvements of Art. Thus the Conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, of Alexander and Tamerlane, which I take, to have been the greatest, Recorded in Story, were at their height, in those Persons that began them, and so far from being increased by their Successors, that they were not preserved, in their extent and vigour by any of them; grew weaker in every hand they passed through, or were divided into many, that set up for great Princes, out of several small ruins of the First Empires, till they withered away in time, or were lost by the change of Names and Forms of Families or of Governments.  
Just the same Fate seems to have attended, the highest flights of Learning and of Knowledge, that are upon our Registers. Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hypocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, were the first mighty Conquerors of Ignorance in our World, and made greater progresses, in the several Empires of Science, than any of their Successors have been since able to reach. These have hardly ever pretended more, than to learn what the others taught, to remember what they invented, and not able to compass that itself, they have set up for Authors, upon some parcels of those great Stocks, or else have contented themselves only to comment upon those Texts, and make the best Copies they could, after those Originals.  
I have long thought, that the different abilities of Men, which we call Wisdom or Prudence, for the conduct of Public Affairs or Private Life, grow directly out of that little grain of Intellect or Good Sense, which they bring with them into the World, and that the defect of it in Men, comes from some want in their Conception or Birth.  — Dixitque semel Nascentibus Author Quicquid scire licet— 
And though this, may be improved or impaired in some degree, by accidents of Education, of Study, and of Conversation or Business, yet it cannot go beyond the reach of its Native Force, no more than Life can, beyond the period to which it was destined, by the strength or weakness, of the seminal Virtue.  
If these speculations should be true, than I know not what advantages we can pretend to modern Knowledge, by any we receive from the Ancients; Nay, 'tis possible, men may lose rather than gain by them, may lessen the Force and Growth of their own Genius, by constraining and forming it upon that of others, may have less Knowledge of their own, for contenting themselves with that of those before them. So a Man that only Translates shall never be a Poet, nor a Painter that only Copies, nor a Swimmer that Swims always with Bladders. So People that trust wholly to others Charity, and without Industry of their own, will be always poor. Besides, who can tell, whether Learning may not even weaken Invention, in a Man that has great Advantages from Nature and Birth, whether the weight and number of so many other men's thoughts and notions, may not suppress his own, or hinder the motion or agitation of them, from which all Invention arises; As heaping on Wood or too many Sticks, or too close together, suppresses and sometimes quite extinguishes, a little Spark that would otherwise have grown up to a noble Flame. The strength of Mind as well as of Body, grows more from the warmth of Exercise than of clothes, nay, too much of this Foreign Heat, rather makes Men faint, and their Constitutions tender or weaker, than they would be without them. Let it come about how it will, if we are Dwarves, we are still so, though we stand upon a giant's shoulders, and even so placed, yet we see less than he, if we are naturally shorter sighted, or if we do not look as much about us, or if we are dazzled with the height, which often happens from weakness either of Heart or Brain.  
In the growth and stature of Souls as well as Bodies, the common productions are of indifferent sizes, that occasion no gazing nor no wonder: But there are or have been, sometimes Dwarves and sometimes Giants in the World, yet it does not follow, that there must be such in every Age nor in every Country. This we can no more conclude, than that there never have been any, because there are none now, at least in the compass of our present Knowledge or Inquiry. As I believe, there may have been Giants at some time, and some place or other in the World, of such a stature, as may not have been equalled perhaps again, in several Thousands of Years, or in any other Parts; so there may be Giants in Wit and Knowledge, of so overgrown a size, as not to be equalled again in many successions of Ages, or any compass of Place or Country. Such, I am sure, Lucretius esteems and describes Epicurus to have been, and to have risen, like a Prodigy of Invention and Knowledge, such as had not been before nor was like to be again; and I know not, why others of the Ancients, may not be allowed to have been as great in their kinds, and to have built as high, though upon different Schemes or Foundations. Because there is a Stag's-head at Amboyse, of a most prodigious size, and a large Table at Memorancy, cut out of the thickness of a Vine-stock, is it necessary, that there must be, every Age, such a Stag in every great Forest, or such a Vine in every large Vineyard, or that the Productions of Nature in any kind, must be still alike or something near it, because Nature is still the same? May there not many circumstances concur, to one production, that do not to any other, in one or many Ages? In the growth of a Tree, there is the native strength of the seed both from the kind, and from the perfection of its ripening, and from the health and vigour of the Plant that bore it. There is the degree of strength and excellence, in that Vein of Earth where it first took root; There is a propriety of Soil, suited to the kind of Tree that grows in it; there is a great favour or disfavour to its growth, from accidents of Water and of Shelter, from the kindness or unkindness of Seasons, till it be passed the need or the danger of them. All these, and perhaps many others, joined with the propitiousness of Climate, to that sort of Tree, and the length of Age it shall stand and grow, may produce an Oak, a Fig, or a Planetree, that shall deserve to be renowned in Story, and shall not perhaps be parallelled, in other Countries or Times.  
May not the same have happened in the production, growth, and size of Wit and Genius in the World, or in some Parts or Ages of it, and from many more circumstances that contributed towards it, than what may concur to the stupendious growth of a Tree or Animal? May there not have been, in Greece or Italy of old, such prodigies of Invention and Learning in Philosophy, Mathematics, Physic, Oratory, Poetry, that none has ever since approached them, as well as there were in Painting, Statuary, Architecture, and yet their unparallelled and inimitable excellencies in these are undisputed.  
Science and Arts, have run their circles, and had their periods in the several Parts of the World; They are generally agreed, to have held their course from East to West, to have begun in Chaldaea and Egypt, to have been Transplanted from thence to Greece, from Greece to Rome, to have sunk there, and after many Ages, to have revived from those Ashes, and to have sprung up again, both in Italy and other more Western Provinces of Europe. When Chaldaea and Egypt were Learned and Civil, Greece and Rome were as rude and barbarous as all Egypt and Syria now are, and have been long. When Greece and Rome were at their heights, in Arts and Science, Gaul, Germany, Britain, were as ignorant and barbarous, as any Parts of Greece or Turkey can be now.  
These and greater changes are made, in the several Countries of the World, and courses of time, by the Revolutions of Empire, the Devastations of Armies, the Cruelties of Conquering, and the Calamities of enslaved Nations, by the violent Inundations of Water in some Countries, and the Cruel Ravages of Plagues in others: These sorts of accidents, sometimes lay them so waste, that when they rise again, 'tis from such low beginnings, that they look like New-Created Regions, or growing out of the Original State of Mankind, and without any Records or Remembrances, beyond certain short periods of Time. Thus, that vast Continent of Norway, is said to have been, so wholly desolated by a Plague, about Eight or Nine Hundred Years ago, that it was for some Ages following, a very Desert, and since all overgrown with Wood And Ireland was so spoiled and wasted by the Conquests of the Sceutes and Danes, that there hardly remains any Story or Tradition, what that Island was, how Planted or Governed above Five Hundred Years ago. What changes have been made by Violent Storms, and Inundations of the Sea, in the Maritime Provinces of the Low-Countries, is hard to know, or to believe what is told, nor how ignorant they have left us, of all that passed there, before a certain and short period of Time.  
The Accounts of many other Countries, would perhaps, as hardly and as late, have waded out of the Depths of Time, and Gulfs of Ignorance, had it not been for the Assistance of those two Languages, to which we owe all we have, of Learning or Ancient Records in the World. For whether we have any thing of the Old Chaldaean, Hebrew, Arabian, that is truly Genuine, or more Ancient than the Augustan Age, I am much in doubt; yet 'tis probable, the vast Alexandrian Library must have chiefly consisted of Books composed in those Languages, with the Egyptian, Syrian and Aethioptick, or at least, Translated out of them by the Care of the Egyptian Kings or Priests, as the Old Testament was, wherein the Septuagints employed, left their Name to that Famous Translation.  
'Tis very true and just, All that is said of the mighty Progress, that Learning and Knowledge have made, in these Western Parts of Europe, within these hundred and fifty Years; but that does not conclude, it must be at a greater Height, than it had been in other Countries, where it was growing much longer Periods of Time; it argues more how low it was then amongst us, rather than how high it is now.  
Upon the Fall of the Roman Empire, almost all Learning was buried in its Ruins: The Northern Nations that Conquered, or rather overwhelmed it by their Numbers, were too barbarous to preserve the Remains of Learning or Civility, more carefully than they did those of Statuary or Architecture, which fell before their Brutish Rage. The Saracens indeed, from their Conquests of Egypt, Syria, and Greece, carried home great Spoils of Learning, as well as other Riches, and gave the Original of all that Knowledge, which flourished for some Time, among the Arabians, and has since been copied out of many Authors among them, as theirs had been, out of those of the Countries they had subdued; nor indeed, do Learning, Civility, Morality, seem any where to have made a greater Growth, in so short a Time, than in that Empire, nor to have flourished more, than in the Reign of their Great Almanzor, under whose Victorious Ensigns, Spain was Conquered by the Moors; but the Goths, and all the rest of those Scythian Swarms, that from beyond the Danube and the Elb, under so many several Names, overrun all Europe, took very hardly and very late, any Tincture of the Learning and Humanity that had flourished in the several Regions of it, under the Protection, and by the Example and Instructions of the Romans, that had so long possessed them: Those Northern Nations, were indeed easier induced to embrace the Religion of those they had subdued, and by their Devotion gave great Authority and Revenues, and thereby Ease to the Clergy, both Secular and Regular, through all their Conquests. Great Numbers, of the better sort, among the Oppressed Natives, finding this vain among them, and no other way to be safe and quiet under such rough Masters, betook themselves to the Profession and Assemblies of Religious Orders and Fraternities, and among those only were preserved, all the poor Remainders of Learning, in these several Countries.  
But these good Men either contented themselves with their Devotion, or with the Ease of quiet Lives, or else employed their Thoughts and Studies, to raise and maintain the Esteem and Authority of that Sacred Order, to which they owed the Safety and Repose, the Wealth and Honour they enjoyed. And in this they so well succeeded, that the Conquerors were governed by those they had subdued, the Greatest Princes by the Meanest Priests, and the Victorious Franks and Lombard Kings, fell at the Feet of the Roman Prelates.  
Whilst the Clergy were busied in these Thoughts or Studies, the better sort among the Laity, were wholly turned to Arms and to Honour, the meaner sort to Labour or to Spoil; Princes taken up with Wars among themselves, or in those of the Holy Land, or between the Popes and Emperors, upon Disputes of the Ecclesiastical and Secular Powers, Learning so little in use among them, that few could write or read, besides those of the Long Robes. During this Course of Time, which lasted many Ages in the Western Parts of Europe: The Greek Tongue was wholly lost, and the Purity of the Roman to that degree that what remained of it, was only a certain Jargon rather than Latin, that passed among the Monks and Friars who were not at all Learned, and among the Students of the several Universities, which served to Carry them to Rome, in pursuit of Preferments or Causes depending there, and little else.  
When the Turks took Constantinople, about two hundred Years ago, and soon after possessed themselves of all Greece, the poor Natives fearing the Tyranny of those cruel Masters, made their Escapes in great Numbers to the Neighbouring Parts of Christendom, some by the Austrian Territories into Germany, others by the Venetian into Italy and France; several that were Learned among these Grecians, (and brought many Ancient Books with them in that Language) began to teach it in these Countries, first to gain subsistence, and afterwards Favour in some Princes, or Great men's Courts, who began to take a Pleasure or Pride, in countenancing Learned Men: Thus began the Restoration of Learning in these Parts, with that of the Greek Tongue, and soon after, Reuchlyn and Erasmus began that of the purer and ancient Latin. After them, Buchanan carried it, I think, to the greatest Height of any of the Moderns before or since: The Monkish Latin upon this Return, was laughed out of doors, and remains only in the Inns of Germany or Poland; and with the Restitution of these two Noble Languages, and the Books remaining of them (which many Princes and Prelates were curious to recover and collect) Learning of all sorts began to thrive in these Western Regions, and since that time, and in the first succeeding Century, made perhaps a greater Growth, than in any other that we know of, in such a compass of Time, considering into what Depths of Ignorance it was sunk before.  
But why from thence should be concluded, That it has out-grown all that was Ancient, I see no Reason. If a Strong and Vigororus Man, at Thirty Years old, should fall into a Consumption, and so draw on till Fifty, in the extremest Weakness and Infirmity; after that, should begin to Recover Health till Sixty, so as to be again as Strong, as Men usually are at that Age; It might perhaps truly be said, in that case, that he had grown more in Strength, that last Ten Years, than any others of his Life, but not that he was grown to more Strength and Viguor, than he had at Thirty Years old.  
But what are the Sciences, wherein we pretend to excel? I know of no New Philosophers, that have made Entries upon that Noble Stage, for Fifteen Hundred Years past, unless Des Cartes and Hobbs should pretend to it, of whom I shall make no Critic here, but only say, that by what appears of Learned men's Opinions in this Age, they have by no Means eclipsed the Lustre of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, or others of the Ancients. For Grammar or Rhetoric, no Man ever disputed it with them, nor for Poetry, that ever I heard of, besides the New French Author I have mentioned, and against whose Opinion there could I think, never have been given stronger Evidence, than by his own Poems, printed together with that Treatise.  
There is nothing New in Astronomy, to vie with the Ancients, unless it be the Copernican System, nor in Physic unless Harvey's Circulation of the Blood. But whether either of these, be modern discoveries, or derived from old Fountains, is disputed; Nay, it is so too, whether they are true or no, for though Reason may seem to favour them more than the contrary Opinions, yet Sense can very hardly allow them, and to satisfy Mankind, both these must concur. But if they are true, yet these two great discoveries have made no change in the conclusions of Astronomy, nor in the practice of Physic, and so have been of little use to the World, though perhaps of much honour to the Authors.  
What are become of the Charms of Music, by which Men and Beasts, Fishes, Fowls, and Serpents were so frequently Enchanted, and their very Natures changed; By which the Passions of Men were raised to the greatest height and violence, and then as suddenly appeased, so as they might be justly said, to be turned into Lions or Lambs, into Wolves, or into Hearts, by the Power and Charms of this admirable Art. 'Tis agreed by the Learned, that the Science of Music, so admired of the Ancients, is wholly lost in the World, and that what we have now, is made up out of certain Notes, that fell into the fancy or observation, of a poor Friar, in chanting his Matins. So as those Two Divine Excellencies of Music and Poetry, are grown in a manner, to be little more, but the one Fiddling, and the other Rhyming, and are indeed very worthy the ignorance of the Friar, and the barbarousness of the Goths that introduced them among us.  
What have we remaining of Magic, by which the Indians, the Chaldaeans, the Egyptians were so renowned, and by which, effects so wonderful and to common Men so astonishing were produced, as made them have recourse, to Spirits or Supernatural Powers for some account of their strange Operations? By Magic, I mean some excelling knowledge of Nature, and the various Powers and Qualities, in its several productions, and the application of certain Agents, to certain Patients, which by Force of some peculiar Qualities, produce effects very different, from what fall under vulgar Observation or Comprehension. These are, by ignorant People called Magic and Conjuring, and such like Terms, and an Account of them much about as wise, is given by the common Learned, from Sympathys, Antipathys, Idiosyncrasys, Talismans', and some scraps or Terms, left us by the Egyptians or Grecians, of the Ancient Magic, but the Science seems, with several others, to be wholly lost.  
What Traces have we left of that admirable Science or Skill in Architecture, by which such stupendious Fabrics have been raised of old, and so many of the Wonders of the World been produced, and which are so little approached by our Modern Achievements of this sort, that they hardly fall within our Imagination? Not to mention the Walls and Palace of Babylon, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Tomb of Mausolus, or Colosse of Rhodes, the Temples and Palaces of Greece and Rome: What can be more admirable in this kind, than the Roman Theatres, their Aqueducts, and their Bridges, among which, that of Trajan over the Danube, seems to have been the last Flight of the Ancient Architecture. The stupendious Effects of this Science, sufficiently evince, at what Heights the Mathematics were among the Ancients; but if this be not enough, whoever would be satisfied, need go no further than the Siege of Syracuse, and that mighty Defence made against the Roman Power, more by the wonderful Science and Arts of Archimedes, and almost Magical Force of his Engines, than by all the Strength of the City, or Number and Bravery of the Inhabitants.  
The greatest Invention that I know of in later Ages, has been that of the Loadstone, and consequently, the greatest Improvement has been made in the Art of Navigation; yet there must be allowed, to have been something stupendious in the Numbers, and in the Built of their Ships, and Galleys of old; and the Skill of Pilots, from the Observation of the Stars in the more serene Climates, may be judged, by the Navigations so celebrated in Story, of the Tyrians and Carthaginians, not to mention other Nations. However, 'tis to this we owe the Discovery and Commerce of so many vast Countries, which were very little, if at all, known to the Ancients, and the experimental Proof of this Terrestrial Globe, which was before only Speculation, but has since been surrounded by the Fortune and Boldness of several Navigators. From this great, though fortuitous Invention, and the Consequence thereof, it must be allowed, that Geography is mightily advanced in these latter Ages. The Vast Continents of China, the East and West Indies, the long Extent and Coasts of Africa, with the numberless Islands belonging to them, have been hereby introduced into our Acquaintance, and our Maps, and great Increases of Wealth and Luxury, but none of Knowledge brought among us, further than the Extent and Situation of Country, the Customs and Manners of so many original Nations, which we call Barbarous, and I am sure, have treated them, as if we hardly esteemed them to be a Part of Mankind. I do not doubt, but many Great and more Noble Uses would have been made of such Conquests or Discoveries, if they had fallen to the share of the Greeks and Romans in those Ages, when Knowledge and Fame were in as great Request, as endless Gains and Wealth are among us now; and how much greater Discoveries might have been made by such Spirits as theirs, is hard to guests. I am sure, ours though great, yet look very imperfect, as to what the Face of this Terrestrial Globe would probably appear, if they had been pursued as far, as we might justly have expected from the Progresses of Navigation, since the Use of the Compass, which seems to have been long at a stand? How little has been performed, of what has been so often, and so confidently promised, of a North-West Passage to the East of Tartary, and North of China? How little do we know of the Lands on that side of the Magellan Straits, that lie towards the South Pole, which may be vast Islands or Continents, for aught any can yet aver, though that Passage was so long since found out? Whether Japan, be Island or Continent, with some Parts of Tartary, on the North side, is not certainly agreed. The Lands of Yedso, upon the North-East Continent, have been no more than Coasted, and whether they may not join to the Northern Continent of America, is by some doubted.  
But the Defect or Negligence, seems yet to have been greater towards the South, where we know little beyond Thirty Five Degrees, and that only, by the Necessity of doubling the Cape of Good Hope, in our East-India Voyages; yet a Continent has been long since found out, within Fifteen Degrees to South, and about the Length of Java, which is Marqued by the Name of New Holland in the Maps, and to what Extent, none knows, either to the South, the East, or the West; yet the Learned have been of Opinion, That there must be a Balance of Earth, on that side of the Line, in some Proportion to what there is on the other, and that it cannot be all Sea, from Thirty Degrees to the South-Pole, since we have found Land to above Sixty Five Degrees towards the North. But our Navigators that way, have been confined to the Roads of Trade, and our Discoveries bounded, by what we can manage to a certain Degree of Gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East-India-Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest Penalties, any further Attempts of discovering that Continent, having already more Trade in those Parts, than they can turn to Account, and fearing some more Populous Nation of Europe, might make great Establishments of Trade, in some of those unknown Regions which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies.  
Thus we are lame still in Geography itself, which we might have ex-expected to run up, to so much greater Perfection, by the Use of the Compass, and it seems to have been little advanced these last Hundred Years. So far have we been from improving upon those Advantages we have received, from the Knowledge of the Ancients, that since the late Restoration of Learning and Arts among us, our first Flights seem to have been the highest, and a sudden Damp to have fallen upon our Wings, which has hindered us, from rising above certain Heights. The Arts of Painting and Statuary, began to revive with Learning in Europe, and make a great, but short Flight; so for as these last Hundred Years, we have not had One Master in either of them, who deserved a Rank with those that flourished in that short Period, after they began among us.  
It were too great a Mortification to think, That the same Fate has happened to us, even in our Modern Learning, as if the Growth of that, as well as of Natural Bodies, had some short Periods, beyond which it could not reach, and after which, it must begin to decay. It falls in one Country or one Age, and rises again in others, but never beyond a certain Pitch. One man, or one Country, at a certain Time runs a great Length in some certain Kind's of Knowledge, but lose as much Ground in others, that were perhaps as useful and as valuable. There is a certain Degree of Capacity in the greatest Vessel, and when 'tis full, if you pour in still, it must run out some way or other, and the more it runs out on one side, the less runs out at the other. So the greatest Memory after a certain Degree, as it learns or retains more of some Things or Words, loses and forgets as much of others. The largest and deepest Reach of Thought, the more it pursues some certain Subjects, the more it neglects others.  
Besides, few Men or none excel in all Faculties of Mind. A great Memory may fail of Invention, both may want Judgement to Digest or Apply, what they Remember or Invent. Great Courage may want Caution, great Prudence may want Vigour, yet all are necessary to make a great Commander. But how can a Man hope, to excel in all qualities, when some are produced by the heat, others by the coldness of Brain and Temper? The abilities of Man must fall short on, one side or other, like too scanty a Blanket when you are a Bed, if you pull it upon your Shoulders you leave your Feet bare, if you thrust it down upon your Feet your Shoulders are uncovered.  
But what would we have, unless it be other Natures and Being's than God Almighty has given us? The height of our Statures may be six or seven Foot, and we would have it sixteen; the length of our Age may reach to an hundred Years, and we would have it a thousand. We are born to grovel upon the Earth, and we would fain soar up to the Skies. We cannot comprehend the growth of a Kernel or Seed, the Frame of an Ant or Bee, we are amazed at the Wisdom of the one, and Industry of the other, and yet we will know the Substance, the Figure, the Courses, the Influences, of all those Glorious Celestial Bodies, and the end for which they were made; we pretend to give a clear Account, how Thunder and Lightning (that great Artillery of God Almighty) is produced, and we cannot comprehend how the Voice of a Man is Framed, that poor little noise we make every time we speak. The motion of the Sun, is plain and evident to some Astronomers, and of the Earth to others, yet we none of us know, which of them moves, and meet with many seeming impossibilities in both, and beyond the fathom, of human reason or comprehension. Nay we do not so much as know what motion is, nor how a Stone moves from our Hand, when we throw it cross the Street. Of all these, that most Ancient and Divine Writer, gives the best Account in that short satire. Vain Man would fain be wise, when he is born like a wild Asses Colt.  
But God be thanked, his Pride is greater than his Ignorance, and what he wants in Knowledge he supplies by Sufficiency. When he has looked about him as far as he can, he concludes there is no more to be seen; when he is at the end of his Line he is at the bottom of the Ocean; when he has shot his best, he is sure, none ever did nor ever can shoot better or beyond it. His own Reason is the certain measure of Truth, his own Knowledge, of what is possible in Nature, though his Mind and his Thoughts change every seven Years, as well as his Strength and his Features; nay though his Opinions change every Week or every Day, yet he is sure, or at least confident, that his present Thoughts and Conclusions are just and true and cannot be deceived; And among all the Miseries, to which Mankind is born and subjected, in the whole Course of his Life, he has this one Felicity to Comfort and Support him, that in all ages, in all things, every man is always in the right. A Boy of fifteen is wiser than his Father at forty, the meanest Subject than his Prince or Governors, and the modern Scholars, because they have for an Hundred Years past learned their Lesson pretty well, are much more knowing than the Ancients their Masters.  
But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, Is it so by Experience too? Have the Studies, the Writings, the Productions of Gresham College, or the late Academies of Paris, out-shined or eclipsed the Lycaeum of Plato, the Academy of Aristotle, the Stoa of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus? Has Hervy outdone Hypocrates, or Wilkins, Archimedes? Are D'avila's and Stradas Histories beyond those of Herodotus and Livy? Are Sleyden's Commentaries beyond those of Caesar? The Flights of Boileau above those of Virgil? If all this must be allowed, I will then yield Gondibert to have excelled Homer, as it pretended, and the modern French Poetry, all that of the Ancients. And yet I think, it may be as reasonably said, That the Plays in Moorfields are beyond the Olympic Games; A Welsh or Irish Harp, excels those of Orpheus and Arion; The Pyramid in London, those of Memphis; and the French Conquests in Flanders are greater than those of Alexander and Caesar, as their Operaes and Panegyrics would make us believe.  
But the Consideration of Poetry ought to be a Subject by itself: For the Books we have in Prose, Do any of the modern we converse with, appear of such a Spirit and Force, as if they would live longer than the Ancient have done? If our Wit and Eloquence, our Knowledge or Inventions would deserve it, yet our Languages would not, there is no hope of their lasting long, nor of any thing in them, they change every Hundred Years so as to be hardly known for the same, or any thing of the former Styles to be endured by the later, so as they can no more last like the Ancients, than excellent Carving in Wood like those in Marble or Brass.  
The three modern Tongues most esteemed, are Italian, Spanish and French, all imperfect Dialects of the Noble Roman; first mingled and corrupted, with the harsh Words and Terminations, of those many different and barbarous Nations, by whose Invasions and Excursions, the Roman Empire was long infested: They were afterwards made up into these several Languages, by long and popular use, out of those ruins and corruptions of Latin, and the prevailing Language of those Nations, to which, these several Provinces came in time to be most and longest subjected (as the Goths and Moors in Spain, the Goths and Lombard's in Italy, the Franks in Gaul) besides a mingle of those Tongues, which were Original to Gaul and to Spain, before the Roman Conquests and Establishments there. Of these, there may be some remainders in Biscay or the Asturias, but I doubt, whether there be any of the old gallic in France, the subjection there, having been more Universal, both to the Romans and Franks. But I do not find, the Mountainous Parts on the North of Spain, were ever wholly Subdued or formerly Governed, either by the Romans, Goths or Saracens, no more than Wales by Romans, Saxons, or Normans, after their Conquests in our Islands, which has preserved the ancient Biscayn and British more entire, than any Native Tongue of other Provinces, where the Roman and Gothick or Northern Conquests reached, and were for any time Established.  
'Tis easy to imagine, how imperfect Copies these modern Languages, thus composed, must needs be, of so excellent an Original, being patched up, out of the Conceptions as well as Sounds, of such barbarous or enslaved People. Whereas the Latin, was framed or cultivated, by the thoughts and uses, of the Noblest Nation that appears upon any Record of Story, and enriched only by the Spoils of Greece, which alone could pretend to contest it with them. 'Tis obvious enough, what rapport there is, and must ever be, between the Thoughts and Words, the Conceptions and Languages of every Country, and how great a difference this must make in the Comparison and Excellence of Books, and how easy and just a preference it must decree, to those of the Greek and Latin, before any of the modern Languages.  
It may perhaps, be further affirmed, in Favour of the Ancients, that the oldest Books we have, are still in their kind the best. The two most ancient, that I know of in Prose, among those we call profane Authors, are Aesop's Fables, and Phalaris' Epistles, both living near the same time, which was, that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As the first has been agreed by all Ages since, for the greatest Master in his kind, and all others of that sort, have been but imitations of his Original; so I think the Epistles of Phalaris, to have more Race, more Spirit, more Force of Wit and Genius than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modern. I know several Learned Men (or that usually pass for such, under the Name of Critics) have not esteemed them Genuine, and Politian with some others, have attributed them to Lucian: But I think, he must have little skill in Painting, that cannot find out this to be an Original; such diversity of Passions, upon such variety of Actions, and Passages of Life and Government, such Freedom of Thought, such Boldness of Expression, such Bounty to his Friends, such Scorn of his Enemies, such Honour of Learned Men, such Esteem of Good, such Knowledge of Life, such Contempt of Death, with such Fierceness of Nature and Cruelty of Revenge could never be represented, but by him that possessed them; and I esteem Lucian to have been no more Capable of Writing, than of Acting what Phalaris did. In all one Writ, you find the Scholar or the Sophist, and in all the other, the Tyrant and the Commander.  
The next to these in Time, are Herodotus, Thucydides, Hypocrates, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, of whom I shall say no more, than what I think is allowed by all, that they are in their several kinds, inimitable. So are Caesar, Sallust, and Cicero, in theirs, who are the Ancientest of the Latin, (I speak still of Prose) unless it be some little of old Cato, upon Rustic Affairs.  
The Height and Purity of the Roman Style, as it began towards the Time of Lucretius, which was about that of the Jugurthin War, so it ended about that of Tiberius; and the last strain of it, seems to have been Velleius Paterculus. The Purity of the Greek lasted a great deal longer, and must be allowed till Trajan's Time, when Plutarch wrote, Whose Greek is much more estimable, than the Latin of Tacitus his Contemporary. After this last, I know none that deserves the Name of Latin, in comparison of what went before them, especially in the Augustan Age; If any, 'tis the little Treatise of Minutius Foelix. All Latin Books that we have till the end of Trajan, and all Greek till the end of Marcus Antoninus, have a true and very esteemable value. All written since that time, seem to me, to have little more than what comes from the Relation of Events, we are glad to know, or the Controversy of Opinions in Religion or Laws, wherein the busy World has been so much employed.  
The great Wits among the moderns have been, in my Opinion, and in their several kinds, of the Italians, Boccace, Machiavelli, and Padre Paolo; Among the Spaniards, Cervantes (that writ Don Quixot) and Guevara; Among the French, Rabelais, and Montagne; Among the English, Sir Philip Sidney, Bacon and Selden: I mention nothing of what is written upon the Subject of Divinity, wherein the Spanish and English Pens, have been most Conversant and most Excelled. The modern French, are Voiture, Rochfaucalt's Memoirs, Bussy's Amours de Gaul, with several other little Relations or Memoirs that have run this Age, which are very Pleasant and Entertaining, and seem to have Refined the French Language to a degree, that cannot be well exceeded. I doubt it may have happened there, as it does in all Works, that the more they are filled and polished, the less they have of weight and of strength; and as that Language, has much more fineness and smoothness at this time, so I take it, to have had much more force, spirit and compass, in Montagne's Age.  
Since those accidents, which contributed to the Restoration of Learning, almost extinguished in the Western Parts of Europe, have been observed, it will be just to mention some, that may have hindered the advancement of it, in proportion to what might have been expected, from the mighty growth and Progress made in the first Age after its Recovery. One great reason may have been, that very soon after the entry of Learning, upon the Scene of Christendom, another was made, by many of the New-Learned Men, into the inquiries and contests about Matters of Religion, the Manners and Maxims and Institutions introduced by the Clergy, for seven or eight Centuries past, The Authority of Scripture and Tradition, Of Popes and of Councils, Of the ancient Fathers and of the later Schoolmen and Casuists, Of Ecclesiastical and Civil Power. The humour of ravelling into all these mystical or entangled Matters, mingling with the Interests and Passions, of Princes and of Parties, and thereby heightened or inflamed, produced infinite Disputes, raised violent Heats throughout all Parts of Christendom, and soon ended, in many Defections or Reformations from the Roman Church, and in several New Institutions, both Ecclesiastical and Civil, in divers Countries, which have been since Rooted and Established, in almost all the North-West Parts. The endless Disputes and litigious Quarrels, upon all these Subjects, favoured and encouraged, by the Interests of the several Princes engaged in them, either took up wholly, or generally employed, the Thoughts, the Studies, the Applications, the Endeavours of all or most, of the finest Wits, the deepest Scholars, and the most Learned Writers, that the Age produced. Many excellent Spirits, and the most penetrating Genies, that might have made admirable Progresses and Advances, in many other Sciences, were sunk and over whelmed in the abyss of Disputes, about Matters of Religion, without ever turning their Looks or Thoughts, any other way. To these Disputes of the Pen, succeeded those of the Sword, and the ambition of Great Princes and Ministers, mingled with the Zeal, or covered with the Pretences of Religion, has for a Hundred Years past, infested Christendom, with almost a perpetual Course or Succession, either of Civil or of Foreign Wars; the noise and disorders whereof, have been ever the most capital Enemies of the Muses, who are seated by the ancient Fables, upon the top of Parnassus, that is, in a place of safety and of quiet, from the reach of all noises and disturbances of the Regions below.  
Another circumstance, that may have hindered the advancement of Learning, has been a want or decay of Favour in Great Kings and Princes, to encourage or applaud it. Upon the first return or recovery of this fair Stranger among us, all were fond of seeing her, apt to applaud her, she was lodged in Palaces instead of Cells, and the greatest Kings and Princes of the Age, took either a pleasure in courting her, or a vanity in admiring her, and in favouring all her Train. The Courts of Italy and Germany, of England, of France, of Popes and of Emperors, thought themselves Honoured and Adorned, by the Number and Qualities of Learned Men, and by all the improvements of Sciences and Arts, wherein they excelled. They were invited from all Parts, for the Use and Entertainment of Kings, for the Education and Instruction of young Princes, for Advice and Assistance to the greatest Ministers; and in short, the Favour of Learning was the humour and mode of the Age. Francis the First, Charles' the Fifth, and Henry the Eighth (those three great Rivals) agreed in this, though in nothing else. Many Nobles pursued this Vein with great Application and Success; among whom, Picus de Mirandula, a Sovereign Prince in Italy, might have proved a Prodigy of Learning, if his Studies and Life had lasted as long, as those of the Ancients: For I think all of them that writ much of what we have now remaining, lived old, whereas he died about Three and Thirty, and left the World in admiration, of so much knowledge in so much youth. Since those Reigns I have not observed in our modern Story, any Great Princes much Celebrated, for their Favour of Learning, further than to serve their turns, to justify their Pretensions and Quarrels, or flatter their Successes. The Honour of Princes has of late struck Sale to their Interest, whereas of old, their Interests, Greatness, and Conquests, were all Dedicated to their Glory and Fame.  
How much the Studies and Labours of Learned Men, must have been damped, for want of this influence and kind aspect of Princes, may be best conjectured, from what happened on the contrary, about the Augustan Age, when the Learning of Rome was at its height, and perhaps owed it in some Degree, to the Bounty and Patronage of that Emperor, and Maecenas his Favourite, as well as to the Felicity of the Empire, and Tranquillity of the Age.  
The humour of Avarice and greediness of Wealth, have been ever, and in all Countries, where Silver and Gold have been in Price, and of currant use; But if it be true in particular Men, that as Riches increase the desires of them do so too, May it not be true, of the general Vein and Humour of Ages? May they not have turned more, to this pursuit of insatiable gains, since the Discoveries and Plantations of the West-Indies, and those vast Treasures that have flowed in to these Western Parts of Europe almost every Year, and with such mighty Tides for so long a course of time? Where few are rich, few care for it, where many are so many desire it, and most in time, begin to think it necessary. Where this Opinion grows general in a Country, the Temples of Honour are soon pulled down, and all men's Sacrifices are made, to those of Fortune. The Soldier as well as the Merchant, the Scholar as well as the Ploughman, the Divine and the Statesman, as well as the Lawyer and Physician.  
Now I think that nothing is more evident in the World, than that Honour is a much stronger Principle, both of Action and Invention, than Gain can ever be. That all the Great and Noble Productions of Wit and of Courage, have been inspired and exalted, by that alone. That the charming Flights and Labours of Poets, the deep Speculations and Studies of Philosophers, the Conquests of Emperors and Achievements of Heroes, have all flowed from this one Source of Honour and Fame. The last Farewell that Horace takes of his Lyric Poems, Epicurus of his Inventions in Philosophy, Augustus of his Empire and Government, are all of the same strain; and as their Lives were entertained, so their Age was relieved, and their Deaths softened, by the prospect of lying down upon upon the Bed of Fame.  
Avarice is on the other side, of all Passions the most sordid, the most clogged and covered with dirt and with dross, so that it cannot raise its Wings, beyond the smell of the Earth: 'Tis the Pay of common Soldiers, as Honour is of Commanders, and yet among those themselves, none ever went so far, upon the hopes of prey or of spoils, as those that have been spirited by Honour or Religion. 'Tis no wonder then, that Learning has been so little advanced since it grew to be mercenary, and the Progress of it has been fettered by the cares of the World, and disturbed by the desires of being Rich, or the fears of being Poor; from all which, the ancient Philosophers, the brahmin's of India, the Chaldaean Magis, and Egyptian Priests were disentangled and free.  
But the last maim given to Learning has been by the scorn of Pedantry, which the shallow, the superficial, and the sufficient among Scholars, first drew upon themselves, and very justly, by pretending to more than they had, or to more esteem, than what they had could deserve; by broaching it in all places, at all times, upon all occasions; and by living so much among themselves, or in their Closets and Cells, as to make them unfit for all other business, and ridiculous in all other Conversations. As an infection that rises in a Town, first falls upon Children, or weak Constitutions, or those that are subject to other Diseases, but spreading further by degrees, seizes upon the most healthy, vigorous, and strong; And when the Contagion grows very general, all the Neighbours avoid coming into the Town, or are afraid of those that are well among them, as much as of those that are sick. Just so it fared in the Commonwealth of Learning, some poor weak Constitutions were first infected with Pedantry, the Contagion spread in time upon some that were stronger, Foreigners that heard there was a Plague in the Country, grew afraid to come there, and avoided the commerce of the sound, as well as of the diseased. This dislike or apprehension turned, like all fear, to hatred, and hatred to scorn. The rest of the Neighbours began first to rail at Pedants, then to ridicule them; the Learned began to fear the same Fate, and that the Pigeons should be taken for Daws, because they were all in a Flock: And because the poorest and meanest of the Company were proud, the best and the richest, began to be ashamed.  
An Ingenious Spaniard at Brussels, would needs have it, that the History of Don Quixot had ruined the Spanish Monarchy; For before that time, Love and Valour, were all Romance among them, every young Cavalier that entered the Scene, Dedicated the Services of his Life, to his Honour first, and then to his Mistress. They Lived and Died in this Romantic Vein, and the old Duke of Alva, in his last Portugal expedition, had a young Mistress, to whom, the Glory of that Atchieument was Devoted, by which he hoped to value himself instead of those qualities he had lost with his youth. After Don Quixot appeared, and with that inimitable Wit and Humour, turned all this Romantic Honour and Love into Ridicule, the Spaniards, he said, began to grow ashamed of both, and to laugh at Fight and Loving; or at least otherwise, than to pursue their Fortune, or satisfy their Lust, and the consequences of this, both upon their Bodies and their Minds; This the Spaniard would needs have pass, for a great Cause of the ruin of Spain, or of its Greatness and Power.  
Whatever effect, the Ridicule of Knight-Errantry, might have had upon that Monarchy, I believe, that of Pedantry, has had a very ill one, upon the Commonwealth of Learning; and I wish, the Vein of Ridiculing all that is serious and good, all Honour and Virtue, as well as Learning and piety, may have no worse effects on any other State: 'Tis the Itch of our Age and Climate, and has overrun both the Court and the Stage, enters a House of Lords and Commons, as boldly as a Coffee-house, Debates of Council as well as Private Conversation; and I have known in my Life, more than one or two Ministers of State, that would rather have said a Witty thing, than done a Wise one, and made the Company Laugh rather than the Kingdom Rejoice. But this is enough to excuse the imperfections of Learning in our Age, and to censure the sufficiency of some of the Learned; and this small Piece of Justice I have done the Ancients, will not I hope, be taken any more than 'tis meant, for any injury to the Moderns.  
I shall Conclude with a Saying of Alphonsus (Surnamed the Wise) King of Arragon;  That among so many things as are by Men possessed or pursued in the Course of their Lives, all the rest are but Baubles, Besides Old Wood to Burn, Old Wine to Drink, Old Friends to Converse with, and Old Books to Read.  

ESSAY II. Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, or of Gardening in the Year 1685.  
THE same Faculty of Reason, which gives Mankind the great Advantage and Prerogative over the rest of the Creation, seems to make the greatest Default of Humane Nature; and subjects it to more Troubles, Miseries, or at least Disquiets of Life, than any of its Fellow Creatures: 'Tis this furnishes us with such variety of Passions, and consequently of Wants and Desires, that none other feels; and these followed by infinite Designs and endless Pursuits, and improved by that restlessness of thought, which is natural to most Men, give him a condition of Life suitable to that of his Birth; so that as he alone is born crying, he lives complaining, and dies disappointed.  
Since we cannot escape the pursuit of Passions, and perplexity of Thoughts, which our Reason furnishes us, there is no way left, but to endeavour all we can, either to subdue or to divert them. This last is the common business of common Men, who seek it by all sorts of Sports, Pleasures, Play, or Business. But because the two first are of short continuance, soon ending with weariness, or decay of Vigour and Appetite, the return whereof must be attended, before the others can be renewed; and because Play grows dull, if it be not enlivened with the Hopes of Gain, the general Diversion of Mankind seems to be Business, or the pursuit of Riches in one kind or other, which is an amusement, that has this one advantage above all others, that it lasts those Men who engage in it, to the very ends of their Lives; none ever growing too old for the Thoughts and Desires of increasing his Wealth and Fortunes, either for himself, his Friends, or his Posterity.  
In the first and most simple Ages of each Country, the Conditions and Lives of Men seem to have been very near of Kin with the rest of the Creatures; they lived by the Hour, or by the Day, and satisfied their Appetite with what they could get, from the Herbs, the Fruits, the Springs they met with, when they were hungry or dry; then, with what Fish, Fowl or Beasts they could kill, by Swiftness or Strength, by Craft or Contrivance, by their Hands or such Instruments as Wit helped, or Necessity forced them to invent. When a Man had got enough for the day, he laid up the rest for the morrow, and spent one day in labour, that he might pass the other at ease; and lured on by the Pleasure of this Bait, when he was in Vigour, and His Game fortunate, he would provide for as many days as he could, both for himself and his Children, that were too young to seek out for themselves. Then he cast about, how by sowing of Grain, and by Pasture of the tamer Cattle, to provide for the whole year. After this, dividing the Lands necessary for these Uses, first among Children, and then among Servants, he reserved to himself a Proportion of their Gain, either in the native Stock, or something equivalent, which brought in the use of Money; and where this once came in, none was to be satisfied, without having enough for himself and his Family, and all His and their Posterity for ever; so that I know a certain Lord who professes to value no Lease though for an hundred or a thousand years, nor any Estate or Possession of Land that is not for ever and ever.  
From such small Beginnings have grown such vast and extravagant Designs of poor mortal Men: Yet none could ever answer the naked Indian, Why one Man should take pains, and run Hazards by Sea and Land all his Life, that his Children might be safe and lazy all theirs: And the Precept of taking no care for to morrow, though never minded as impracticable in the World, seems but to reduce Mankind to their natural and original Condition of Life. However by these ways and degrees the endless increase of Riches, seems to be grown the perpetual and general amusement or business of Mankind.  
Somefew in each Country make those higher Flights after Honour and Power, and to these ends sacrifice their Riches, their Labour, their Thought, and their Lives; and nothing diverts nor busies Men more, than these pursuits, which are usually covered with the Pretences, of serving a Man's Country, and of Public Good. But the true Service of the Public is a business of so much Labour and so much Care, that though a good and wise Man may not refuse it, if he be called to it by his Prince or his Country, and thinks he can be of more than vulgar use, yet he will seldom or never seek it, but leaves it commonly to Men, who under the disguise of Public Good, pursue their own designs of Wealth, Power, and such Bastard Honours as usually attend them, not that which is the true and only true Reward of Virtue.  
The pursuits of Ambition, though not so general, yet are as endless as those of Riches, and as extravagant; since none ever yet thought he had Power or Empire enough: And what Prince soever seems to be so great, as to live and reign without any further desires or fears, falls into the Life of a private Man, and enjoys but those Pleasures and Entertainments, which a great many several Degrees of private Fortune will allow, and as much as Humane Nature is capable of enjoying.  
The Pleasures of the Senses grow a little more choice and refined, those of Imagination are turned upon embellishing the Scenes He chooses to live in; Ease, Conveniency, Elegancy, Magnificence, are sought in Building first, and then in furnishing Houses or Palaces: The admirable imitations of Nature are introduced by Pictures, Statues, Tapestry, and other such Achievements of Arts. And the most exquisite delights of Sense are pursued, in the Contrivance and Plantations of Gardens, which, with Fruits, Flowers, Shades, Fountains, and the Music of Birds that frequent such happy places, seem to furnish all the pleasures of the several Senses, and with the greatest, or at least the most natural Perfections.  
Thus the first Race of Assyrian Kings, after the Conquest of Ninus and Semiramis, passed their Lives, till their Empire fell to the Medes. Thus the Caliphs' of Egypt, till deposed by their Mamalukes. Thus passed the latter parts of those great Lives of Scipio, Lucullus, Augustus, Dioclesian. Thus turned the great Thoughts of Henry the Second of France, after the end of his Wars with Spain. Thus the present King of Morocco, after having subdued all his Competitors, passes His Life in a Country Villa, gives Audience in a Grove of Orange-trees planted among purling Streams. And thus the King of France, after all the Successes of His Counsels or Arms, and in the mighty Elevation of His present Greatness and Power, when He gives Himself leisure from such Designs or Pursuits, passes the softer and easier parts of His time in Country Houses and Gardens, in building, planting or adorning the Scenes, or in the common Sports and Entertainments of such kind of Lives. And those mighty Emperors, who contented not themselves with these Pleasures of common Humanity, fell into the Frantic or the Extra vagant; they pretended to be Gods, or turned to be Devils, as Caligula and Nero, and too many others, known enough in Story.  
Whilst Mankind is thus generally buside or amused, that part of them, who have had either the Justice or the Luck, to pass in common Opinion, for the wisest and best part among them, have followed another and very different Sent; and instead of the common designs of satisfying their Appetites and their Passions, and making endless Provisions for both, they have chosen what they thought a nearer and a surer way to the ease and felicity of Life, by endeavouring to subdue, or at least to temper their Passions, and reduce their Appetites to what Nature seems only to ask and to need. And this design seems to have brought Philosophy into the World, at least that which is termed Moral, and appears to have an end, not only desirable by every Man, which is the Ease and Happiness of Life, but also in some degree suitable to the force and reach of humane Nature: For as to that part of Philosophy, which is called Natural, I know no end it can have, but that, of either busying a Man's Brains to no purpose, or satisfying the Vanity, so natural to most Men, of distinguishing themselves by some way or other, from those that seem their Equals in Birth, and the common advantages of it; and whether this distinction be made by Wealth or Power, or appearance of Knowledge, which gains Esteem and Applause in the World, is all a case. More than this, I know no Advantage Mankind has gained, by the progress of Natural Philosophy, during so many Ages it has had Vogue in the World, excepting always, and very justly, what we owe to the Mathematics, which is in a manner, all that seems valuable among the Civilised Nations, more than those we call Barbarous, whether they are so or no, or more so than ourselves.  
How ancient this Natural Philosophy has been in the World, is hard to know, for we find frequent mention of ancient Philosophers in this kind, among the most ancient now extant with us. The first who found out the Vanity of it, seems to have been Solomon, of which Discovery he has left such admirable strains in Ecclesiastes. The next was Socrates, who made it the business of His Life, to explode it, and introduce that which we call Moral in its place, to busy Human Minds to better purpose. And indeed, whoever reads with Thought what these two, and Marcus Antoninus have said, upon the Vanity of all that mortal Man can ever attain to know of Nature, in its Originals or Operations, may save Himself a great deal of Pains, and justly conclude, That the Knowledge of such things is not our Game; and (like the pursuit of a Stag by a little Spaniel) may serve to amuse and to weary us, but will never be hunted down. Yet I think those Three I have named, may justly pass for the wisest Triumvirate that are left us, upon the Records of Story or of Time.  
After Socrates, who left nothing in writing, many Sects of Philosophers began to spread in Greece, who entered boldly upon both parts of Natural and Moral Philosophy. The first, with the greatest Disagreement, and the most eager Contention that could be, upon the greatest Subjects: As, Whether the World were Eternal, or produced at some certain time? Whether if produced, it was by some eternal Mind, and to some end, or by the fortuitous Concourse of Atoms, or some Particles of Eternal Matter? Whether there was one World or many? Whether the Soul of Man was a part of some Aethereal and Eternal Substance, or was Corporeal? Whether if Eternal, it was so before it came into the Body, or only after it went out? There were the same Contentions about the Motions of the Heavens, the Magnitude of the Celestial Bodies, the Faculties of the Mind, and the Judgement of the Senses. But all the different Schemes of Nature that have been drawn of old or of late by Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Des-Cartes, Hobbs, or any other that I know of, seem to agree but in one thing, which is, The want of Demonstration or Satisfaction, to any thinking and unpossessed Man, and seem more or less probable one than another, according to the Wit and Eloquence of the Authors and Advocates that raise or defend them; like Juggler's Tricks, that have more or less appearance of being real, according to the dextrousness and skill of Him that plays 'em; whereas perhaps if we were capable of knowing Truth and Nature, these fine Schemes would prove like Rover Shots, some nearer and some further off, but all at great distance from the Mark, it may be none in sight.  
Yet in the midst of these and many other such Disputes and Contentions in their Natural Philosophy, they seemed to agree much better in their Moral, and upon their Inquires after the Ultimate End of Man, which was His Happiness; their Contentions or Differences seemed to be rather in Words than in the Sense of their Opinions, or in the true meaning of their several Authors or Masters of their Sects: All concluded, that Happiness was the Chief Good, and aught to be the Ultimate End of Man; that as this was the end of Wisdom, so Wisdom was the way to Happiness. The Question than was, in what this Happiness consisted. The Contention grew warmest between the Stoics and Epicureans, the other Sects in this point siding in a manner with one or the other of these, in their Conceptions or Expressions. The Stoics would have it to consist in Virtue, and the Epicureans in Pleasure; yet the most reasonable of the Stoics made the pleasure of Virtue to be the greatest Happiness; and the best of the Epicureans made the greatest Pleasure to consist in Virtue; and the difference between these two seems not easily discovered: All agreed, the greatest Temper, if not the total subduing of Passion, and exercise of Reason, to be the state of the greatest Felicity: To live without Desires or Fears, or those Perturbations of Mind and Thought, which Passions raise: To place true Riches in wanting little, rather than in possessing much; and true Pleasure in Temperance, rather than in satisfying the Senses: To live with indifference to the common Enjoyments and Accidents of Life, and with Constancy upon the greatest Blows of Fate or of Chance; Not to disturb our Minds with sad Reflections upon what is past, nor with anxious Cares or raving Hopes about what is to come; neither to disquiet Life with the Fears of Death, nor Death with the Desires of Life; but in both and in all things else, to follow Nature, seem to be the Precepts most agreed among them.  
Thus Reason seems only to have been called in, to allay those Disorders which itself had raised, to cure its own Wounds, and pretends to make us wise no other way, than by rendering us insensible. This at lest was the Profession of many rigid Stoics, who would have had a wise Man, not only without any sort of Passion, but without any Sense of Pain, as well as Pleasure, and to enjoy Himself in the midst of Diseases and Torments, as well as of Health and Ease; a Principle, in my mind, against common Nature and common Sense, and which might have told us in fewer Words, or with less Circumstance, that a Man to be wise, should not be a Man; and this perhaps might have been easy enough to believe, but nothing so hard as the other.  
The Epicureans were more intelligible in their Notion, and fortunate in their Expression, when they placed a Man's Happiness in the Tranquillity of Mind, and Indolence of Body; for while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As Men of several Languages, say the same things in very different Words, so in several Ages, Countries, Constitutions of Laws and Religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions; What is called by the Stoics Apathy, or Dispassion; by the Sceptics, Indisturbance; by the Molinists, Quietism; by common Men, Peace of Conscience, seems all to mean but great Tranquillity of Mind, though it be made to proceed from so divers Causes, as Human Wisdom, Innocence of Life, or Resignation to the Will of God. An old Usurer had the same Notion, when He said, No Man could have Peace of Conscience, that run out of his Estate, not comprehending what else was meant by that Phrase, besides true Quiet and Content of Mind; which however expressed, is, I suppose, meant by all, to be the best account that can be given of the Happiness of Man, since no Man can pretend to be happy without it.  
I have often wondered, how such sharp and violent Invectives came to be made so generally against Epicurus, by the Ages that followed Him, whose admirable Wit, Felicity of Expression, Excellence of Nature, Sweetness of Conversation, Temperance of Life, and Constancy of Death, made Him so beloved by His Friends, admired by His Scholars, and honoured by the Athenians. But this Injustice may be fastened chiefly upon the envy and malignity of the Stoics at first, then upon the Mistakes of some gross Pretenders to His Sect (who took Pleasure only to be Sensual) and afterwards, upon the Piety of the Primitive Christians, who esteemed his Principles of Natural Philosophy, more opposite to those of our Religion, than either the Platonists, the Peripatetics, or Stoics themselves: Yet I confess, I do not know why the account given by Lucretius of the Gods, should be thought more impious, than that given by Homer, who makes them not only subject to all the weakest Passions, but perpetually busy in all the worst or meanest Actions of Men.  
But Epicurus has found so great Advocates of His Virtue as well as Learning and Inventions, that there need no more; and the Testimonies of Diogenes Laertius alone, seem too sincere and impartial to be disputed, or to want the assistance of Modern Authors: If all failed, He would be but too well defended by the Excellence of so many of His Sect in all Ages, and especially of those who lived in the compass of one, but the greatest in Story, both as to Persons and Events: I need name no more than Caesar, Atticus, Maecenas, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, all admirable in their several kinds, and perhaps unparallelled in Story.  
Caesar, if considered in all Lights, may justly challenge the first place in the Registers we have of Mankind, equal only to Himself, and surpassing all others of His Nation and His Age, in the Virtues and Excellencies of a Statesman, a Captain, an Orator, an Historian; besides all these, a Poet, a Philosopher when His leisure allowed Him; the greatest Man of Counsel and of Action, of Design and Execution; the greatest Nobleness of Birth, of Person, and of Countenance; the greatest Humanity, and Clemency of nature, in the midst of the greatest Provocations, Occasions and Examples of Cruelty and Revenge; 'tis true He overturned the Laws and Constitutions of His Country, yet 'twas after so many others had not only begun, but proceeded very far, to change and violate them; so as in what He did, He seems rather to have prevented others, than to have done what Himself designed; for though His Ambition was vast, yet it seems to have been raised to those Heights, rather by the Insolence of His Enemies, than by His own Temper; and that what was natural to Him, was only a desire of true Glory, and to acquire it by good Actions as well as great, by Conquests of Barbarous Nations, extent of the Roman Empire, defending at first the Liberties of the Plebeians, opposing the Faction that had begun in Sylla and ended in Pompey; and in the whole course of His Victories and Successes, seeking all occasions of Bounty to His Friends, and Clemency to His Enemies.  
Atticus appears to have been one of the wisest and best of the Romans, Learned without pretending, Good without Affectation, Bountiful without Design, a Friend to all Men in misfortune, a Flatterer to no Man in Greatness or Power, a Lover of Mankind, and beloved by them all, and by these Virtues and Dispositions, He passed safe and untouched, through all the Flames of Civil Dissensions, that ravaged His Country the greatest part of His Life; and though He never entered into any Public Affairs, or particular Factions of His State, yet He was favoured, honoured and courted by them all, from Sylla to Augustus.  
Maecenas was the wisest Counsellor, the truest Friend, both of His Prince and His Country, the best Governor of Rome, the happiest and ablest Negociator, the best Judge of Learning and Virtue, the choicest in His Friends, and thereby the happiest in His Conversation that has been known in Story; and I think, to His Conduct in Civil, and Agrippa's in Military Affairs, may be truly ascribed all the Fortunes and Greatness of Augustus, so much celebrated in the World.  
For Lucretius, Virgil and Horace, they deserve in my Opinion, the Honour of the greatest Philosophers, as well as the best Poets of their Nation or Age. The two first, besides what looks like something more than Human in their Poetry, were very great Naturalists, and admirable in their Morals: And Horace, besides the Sweetness and Elegancy of his Lyrics, appears in the rest of His Writings, so great a Master of Life, and of true Sense in the Conduct of it, that I know none beyond him. It was no mean strain of His Philosophy, to refuse being Secretary to Augustus, when so great an Emperor so much desired it. But all the different Sects of Philosophers, seem to have agreed in the Opinion, of a wise Man's abstaining from Public Affairs, which is thought the meaning of Pythagoras' Precept, To abstain from Beans, by which the Affairs or public Resolutions in Athens were managed. They thought that sort of Business too gross and material for the abstracted fineness of their Speculations. They esteemed it too sordid and too artificial for the cleanness and simplicity of their Manners and Lives. They would have no part in the Faults of a Government, and they knew too well, that the Nature and Passions of Men made them incapable of any that was perfect and good, and therefore thought all the Service they could do to the State they lived under, was to mend the Lives and Manners of particular Men that composed it. But where Factions were once entered and rooted in a State, they thought it madness for Good Men to meddle with Public Affairs, which made them turn their Thoughts and Entertainments to any thing rather than this; and Heraclitus, having upon the Factions of the Citizens, quitted the Government of His City, and amusing Himself, to play with the Boys in the Porch of the Temple, asked those who wondered at Him, Whether 'twas not better to play with such Boys, than govern such Men? But above all, they esteemed Public Business the most contrary of all others, to that Tranquillity of Mind, which they esteemed and taught, to be the only true Felicity of Man.  
For this reason Epicurus passed His Life wholly in His Garden; there He Studied, there He Exercised, there He taught His Philosophy; and indeed, no other sort of Abode seems to contribute so much, to both the Tranquillity of Mind, and Indolence of Body, which He made His Chief Ends. The Sweetness of Air, the Pleasantness of Smells, the Verdure of Plants, the Cleanness and Lightness of Food, the Exercises of working or walking, but above all, the Exemption from Cares and Solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve, both Contemplation and Health, the Enjoyments of Sense and Imagination, and thereby the Quiet and Ease both of the Body and Mind.  
Though Epicurus be said to have been the first that had a Garden in Athens, whose Citizens before Him, had theirs in their Villaes' or Farms without the City; yet the use of Gardens seems to have been the most ancient and most general of any sorts of Possession among Mankind, and to have preceded those of Corn or of Cattle, as yielding the easier, the pleasanter, and more natural Food. As it has been the Inclination of Kings, and the choice of Philosophers, so has it been the common Favourite of public and private Men, a Pleasure of the greatest, and a Care of the meanest, and indeed an Employment and a Possession, for which no Man is too high nor too low.  
If we believe the Scripture, we must allow that God Almighty esteemed the Life of a Man in a Garden the happiest He could give Him, or else He would not have placed Adam in that of Eden; that it was the state of Innocence and Pleasure; and that the Life of Husbandry and Cities, came in after the Fall, with Gild and with Labour.  
Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it, may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian Word, since Zenophon and other Greek Authors mention it, as what was much in use and delight among the Kings of those Eastern Countries. Strabo describing Jericho, says, Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt, etiam aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax, palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus, ibi est Regia & Balsami Paradisus. He mentions another place, to be prope Libanum & Paradisum. And Alexander is written to have seen Cyrus' Tomb in a Paradise, being a Tower not very great, and covered with a shade of Trees about it. So that a Paradise among them seems to have been a large space of Ground, adorned and beautified with all sorts of Trees, both of Fruits and of Forest, either found there before it was enclosed, or planted after; either cultivated like Gardens, for Shades and for Walks, with Fountains or Streams, and all sorts of Plants usual in the Climate, and pleasant to the Eye, the Smell, or the Taste; or else employed, like our Parks, for Enclosure and Harbour of all sorts of Wild Beasts, as well as for the pleasure of riding and walking: And so they were of more or less extent, and of differing entertainment, according to the several Humours of the Princes that ordered and enclosed them.  
Semiramis is the first we are told of in Story, that brought them in use through Her Empire, and was so fond of them, as to make one where ever she built, and in all or most of the Provinces she subdued, which are said to have been from Babylon as far as India. The Assyrian Kings continued this Custom and Care, or rather this Pleasure, till one of them brought in the use of smaller and more regular Gardens; For having married a Wife he was fond of, out of one of the Provinces, where such Paradises or Gardens were much in use, and the Country Lady not well bearing the Air or Enclosure of the Palace in Babylon to which the Assyrian Kings used to confine themselves, He made Her Gardens, not only within the Palace, but upon Terrases raised with Earth, over the arched Roofs, and even upon the top of the highest Tower, planted them with all sorts of Fruit-Trees, as well as other Plants and Flowers, the most pleasant of that Country, and thereby made at least the most airy Gardens, as well as the most costly, that have been heard of in the World. This Lady may probably have been Native of the Provinces of Chasimer or of Damascus, which have in all times been the happiest Regions for Fruits of all the East, by the Excellence of Soil, the position of Mountains, the frequency of Streams rather than the Advantages of Climate. And 'tis great pity we do not yet see the History of Chasimir, which Mounsieur Bernier assured me, He had translated out of Persian, and intended to publish, and of which He has given such a taste, in His excellent Memoirs, of the Mogul's Country.  
The next Gardens we read of, are those of Solomon, planted with all sorts of Fruit-Trees, and watered with Fountains; and though we have no more particular Description of them, yet we may find, they were the Places where He passed the times of His Leisure and Delight, where the Houses as well as Grounds, were adorned with all that could be of pleasing and elegant, and were the Retreats and Entertainments of those among his Wives that He loved the best; and 'tis not improbable, that the Paradises mentioned by Strabo were planted by this great and wisest King. But the Idea of the Garden must be very great, if it answers at all to that of the Gardener, who must have employed a great deal of His Care and of His Study, as well as of His Leisure and Thought in these Entertainments, since He writ of all Plants, from the Cedar to the Shrub.  
What the Gardens of the Hesperideses were, we have little or no account, further than the mention of them, and thereby the Testimony of their having been in use and request, in such remoteness of place, and Antiquity of Time.  
The Garden of Alcinous described by Homer, seems wholly Poetical, and made at the pleasure of the Painter, like the rest of the Romantic Palace, in that little barren Island of Phaeacia or Corfu. Yet as all the pieces of this transcendent Genius, are composed with excellent Knowledge, as well as Fancy, so they seldom sail of Instruction as well as Delight to all that read Him. The Seat of this Garden, joining to the Gates of the Palace, the Compass of the Enclosure, being Four Acres, the tall Trees of Shade as well as those of Fruit, the two Fountains, one for the use of the Garden, and the other of the Palace, the continual Succession of Fruits throughout the whole Year, are, for aught I know, the best Rules or Provisions, that can go towards composing the best Gardens; nor is it unlikely, that Homer may have drawn this Picture after the life of some he had seen in jonia, the Country and usual Abode of this Divine Poet; and indeed the Region of the most refined Pleasures and Luxury, as well as Invention and Wit: For the humour and custom of Gardens may have descended earlier into the lower Asia, from Damascus, Assyria, and other parts of the Eastern Empires, though they seem to have made late Entrance, and smaller Improvement in those of Greece and Rome, at least in no proportion to their other Inventions or Refinements of Pleasure and Luxury.  
The long and flourishing Peace of the two first Empires, gave earlier rise and growth to Learning and Civility, and all the Consequences of them, in Magnificence and Elegancy of Building and Gardening; whereas Greece and Rome were almost perpetually engaged in Quarrels and Wars, either abroad or at home, and so were busy in Actions, that were done under the Sun, rather than those under the Shade. These were the Entertainments of the softer Nations, that fell under the Virtue and Prowess of the two last Empires, which from those Conquests brought home mighty Increases both of Riches and Luxury, and so perhaps lost more than they got by the Spoils of the East.  
There may be another reason for the small advance of Gardning in those excellent and more temperate Climates, where the Air and Soil were so apt of themselves, to produce the best sorts of Fruits, without the necessity of cultivating them, by labour and care; whereas the hotter Climates as well as the cold, are forced upon Industry and Skill, to produce or improve many Fruits that grow of themselves in the more temperate Regions. However it were, we have very little mention of Gardens in old Greece or in old Rome, for pleasure or with Elegance, nor of much curiousness or care, to introduce the Fruits of Foreign Climates, contenting themselves with those, which were Native of their own, and these were, the Vine, the Olive, the Fig, the Pear, and the Apple; Cato, as I remember, mentions no more, and their Gardens were then but the necessary part of their Farms, intended particularly for the cheap and easy Food of their Hinds or Slaves, employed in their Agriculture, and so were turned chiefly to all the common sorts of Plants, Herbs, or Legumes, (as the French call them) proper for common nourishment; and the name of Hortus is taken to be from Ortus, because it perpetually furnishes some rise or production of something new in the World.  
Lucullus, after the Mithridatick War, first brought Cherries from Pontus into Italy, which so generally pleased, and were so easily propagated in all Climates, that within the space of about an hundred years, having traveled Westward with the Roman Conquests, they grew common as far as the Rhine, and passed over into Britain. After the Conquest of afric, Greece, the lesser Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy, all the sorts of their Mala, which we interpret Apples, and might signify no more at first, but were afterwards applied to many other Foreign Fruits: The Apricocks coming from Epire, were called Mala Epirotica; Peaches from Persia, Mala Persica; Citrons from Media, Medica; Pomgranets from Carthage, Punica; Quinces, Cothonea, from a small Island in the Grecian Seas; their best Pears were brought from Alexandria, Numidia, Greece and Numantia, as appears by their several Appellations: Their Plums, from Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. The kinds of these are reckoned in Nero's time, to have been near Thirty, as well as of Figs, and many of them were entertained at Rome, with so great Applause, and so general Vogue, that the great Captains, and even Consular Men, who first brought them over, took pride in giving them their own Names, (by which they run a great while in Rome) as in memory of some great Service or Pleasure, they had done their Country; so that not only Laws and Battles, but several sorts of Apples or Mala, and of Pears, were called Manlian and Claudian, Pompeyan and Tiberian, and by several other such Noble Names.  
Thus the Fruits of Rome, in about an hundred years, came from Countries as far as their Conquests had reached, and like Learning, Architecture, Painting and Statuary, made their great advances in Italy, about the Augustan Age. What was of most request, in their common Gardens, in Virgil's time, or at least in His Youth, may be conjectured, by the Description of His old Corycian's Garden, in the Fourth of the Georgics, which begins,  Namque sub Oebaliae memini me turribus altis. 
Among Flowers, the Roses had the first place, especially a kind which bore twice a year; and none other sorts are here mentioned besides the Narcissus, though the Violet and the Lily were very common and the next in esteem, especially the Breve lilium, which was the Tubereuse. The Plants he mentions, are the Apium, which tho commonly interpreted Parsley, yet comprehends all sorts of Smallage, whereof Sellary is one, Cucumis, which takes in all sorts of Melons, as well as Cucumbers; Olus, which is a common Word for all sorts of Potherbs and Legumes; Verbenas, which signifies all kinds of Sweet or Sacred Plants, that were used for adorning the Altars, as Bays, Olive, Rosemary, Myrtle; the Acanthus seems to be what we call Pericanthe; but what their Hederae were, that deserved place in a Garden, I cannot guests, unless they had sorts of Ivy unknown to us; nor what His Vescum Papaver was, since Poppies with us are of no use in eating. The Fruits mentioned, are only Apples, Pears, and Plums; for Olives, Vines, and Figs were grown to be Fruits of their Fields, rather than of their Gardens. The Shades were the Elm, the Pine, the Lime-tree, and the Platanus, or Planetree, whose Leaf and Shade, of all others, was the most in request; and having been brought out of Persia, was such an Inclination among the Greeks and Romans, that they usually fed it with Wine instead of Water; they believed this Tree loved that Liquor, as well as those that used to drink under its Shade; which was a great humour and custom, and perhaps gave rise to the other, by observing the growth of the Tree, or largeness of the Leaves, where much Wine was spilt or left, and thrown upon the Roots.  
'Tis great pity the haste which Virgil seems here to have been in, should have hindered Him from entering farther into the Account or Instructions of Gardning, which He said He could have given, and which He seems to have so much esteemed and loved, by that admirable Picture of this old Man's Felicity, which He draws, like so great a Master, with one stroke of a Pencil, in those Four Words:  Regum aequabat opes animis. 
That in the midst of these small Possessions, upon a few Acres of barren ground, yet He equalled all the Wealth and Opulence of Kings, in the Ease, Content, and Freedom of His Mind.  
I am not satisfied with the common Acception of the Mala Aurea, for Oranges; nor do I find any passage in the Authors of that Age, which gives me the Opinion, that these were otherwise known to the Romans than as Fruits of the Eastern Climates. I should take their Mala Aurea to be rather some kind of Apples, so called from the golden Colour, as some are amongst us; for otherwise, the Orange-tree is too Noble, in the beauty, taste and smell of its Fruit, in the Perfume and Virtue of its Flowers, in the perpetual Verdure of its Leaves, and in the excellent uses of all these, both for Pleasure and Health, not to have deserved any particular mention in the Writings of an Age and Nation, so refined and exquisite in all sorts of delicious Luxury.  
The charming Description Virgil makes of the Happy Apple, must be intended either for the Citron, or for some sort of Orange growing in Media, which was either so proper to that Country, as not to grow in any other (as a certain sort of Fig was to Damascus) or to have lost its Virtue by changing soils, or to have had its effect of curing some sort of Poison that was usual in that Country, but particular to it: I cannot forbear inserting these few Lines, out of the second of Virgil's Georgics, not having ever heard any body else take notice of them.  

Media fert tristes succos tardumque saporem  
Foelicis Mali, quo non praesentius ullum,  
Pocula si quando saevae infecere Novercae,  
Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena;  
Ipsa ingens arbos, faciemque similima lauro,  
Et si non alios late jactaret odores,  
Laurus erit, folia haud ullis labentia ventis,  
Flos apprima tenax, animas & olentia Medi  
Ora fovent illo, ac senibus medicantur anhelis.   

Media brings poisonous herbs, and the flat taste  
Of the blessed Apple, than which ne'er was found  
A help more present, when cursed Stepdame's mix  
Their mortal Cups, to drive the Venom out.  
'Tis a large Tree, and like a Bays in hue,  
And did it not such Odours cast about,  
'Twould be a Bays, the leaves with no winds fall,  
The Flowers all excel; with these the Medes  
Perfume their Breathes, and cure old pursy Men.   
The Tree being so like a Bays or Laurel, the slow or dull taste of the Apple, the Virtue of it against Poison, seem to describe the Citron. The Perfume of the Flowers and Virtues of them, to cure ill Scents of Mouth or Breath, or shortness of Wind in pursy old Men, seem to agree most with the Orange: If Flos apprima tenax, mean only the Excellence of the Flower above all others, it may be intended for the Orange: If it signifies the Flowers growing most upon the tops of the Trees, it may be rather the Citron; for I have been so curious, as to bring up a Citron from a Kernel, which at twelve years' age, began to flower; and I observed all the Flowers to grow upon the top Branches of the Tree, but to be nothing so high or sweet-sented, as the Orange. On the other side, I have always heard Oranges to pass for a Cordial Juice, and a great Preservative against the Plague, which is a sort of Venom; so that I know not to which of these we are to ascribe this lovely Picture of the Happy Apple; but I am satisfied by it, that neither of them was at all common, if at all known in Italy, at that time or long after, though the Fruit be now so frequent there in Fields (atleast in some parts) and make so common and delicious a part of Gardning, even in these Northern Climates.  
In these Countries our Gardens are very different from what they were in Greece and Italy, and from what they are now in those Regions in Spain, or the Southern parts of France. And as most general Customs in Countries grow from the different nature of Climates, soils, or Situations, and from the necessities or Industry they impose, so do these.  
In the warmer Regions, Fruits and Flowers of the best sorts are so common, and of so easy Production, that they grow in Fields, and are not worth the cost of enclosing, or the care of more than ordinary cultivating. On the other side, the great Pleasures of those Climates are coolness of Air, and what ever looks cool even to the Eyes, and relieves them from the unpleasant sight of dusty Streets or parched Fields. This makes the Gardens of those Countries be chiefly valued by largeness of Extent (which gives greater play and openness of Air) by Shades of Trees, by frequency of living Streams or Fountains, by Perspectives, by Statues, and by Pillars and Obelisks of Stone scattered up and down, which all conspire to make any place look fresh and cool. On the contrary, the more Northern Climates, as they suffer little by Heat, make little Provision against it, and are careless of Shade, and seldom curious in Fountains. Good Statues are in the reach of few Men, and common ones are generally and justly despised or neglected. But no sorts of good Fruits or Flowers, being Natives of the Climates, or usual among us, (nor indeed the best sorts of Plants, Herbs, Salads for our Kitchen Gardens themselves) and the best Fruits not ripening without the advantage of Walls or Palisades, by reflection of the faint Heat we receive from the Sun, our Gardens are made of smaller Compass, seldom exceeding four, six, or eight Acres, enclosed with Walls, and laid out in a manner wholly for advantage of Fruits, Flowers, and the Product of Kitchen Gardens in all sorts of Herbs, Salads, Plants and Legumes, for the common use of Tables.  
These are usually the Gardens of England and Holland, as the first sort are those of Italy, and were so of old In the more temperate parts of France, and in Brabant (where I take Gardning to be at its greatest height) they are composed of both sorts, the extent more spacious than ours, part laid out for Flowers, others for Fruits, some Standards, some against Walls or Palisades, some for Forest Trees and Groves for Shade, some parts wild, some exact, and Fountains much in request among them.  
But after so much ramble into Ancient Times, and remote Places, to return home and consider the present way and humour of our Gardning in England, which seem to have grown into such Vogue, and to have been so mightily improved, in three or four and twenty years of His Majesty's Reign, that perhaps few Countries are before us, either in the Elegance of our Gardens, or in the number of our Plants; and I believe none equals us in the Variety of Fruits, which may justly be called good; and from the earliest Cherry and Strawberry to the last Apples and Pears, may furnish every day of the circling year. For the Taste and Perfection of what we esteem the best, I may truly say, that the French who have eaten my Peaches and Grapes at Sheen in no very ill year, have generally concluded, that the last are as good as any they have eaten in France on this side Fountainbleau, and the first as good as any they have eat in Gascony; I mean those which come from the Stone, and are properly called Peaches, not those which are hard, and are termed Pavies; for these cannot grow in too warm a Climate, nor ever be good in a cold, and are better at Madrid than in Gascony itself: Italians have agreed, my White Figs to be as good as any of that sort in Italy, which is the earlier kind of White Fig there; for in the later kind, and the blue, we cannot come near the warm Climates, no more than in the Frontignac or Muscat Grape.  
My Orange-trees are as large as any I saw, when I was young in France, except those of Fountainbleau, or what I have seen since in the Low Countries, except some very old ones of the Prince of Oranges; as laden with Flowers as any can well be, as full of Fruit as I suffer or desire them, and as well tasted as are commonly brought over, except the best sorts of Sevil and Portugal. And thus much I could not but say, in defence of our Climate, which is so much and so generally decried abroad, by those who never saw it, or if they have been here, have yet perhaps seen no more of it, than what belongs to Inns, or to Taverns and Ordinaries, who accuse our Country for their own Defaults, and speak ill, not only of our Gardens and Houses, but of our Humours, our Breeding, our Customs and Manners of Life, by what they have observed of the meaner and base sort of Mankind and of Company among us, because they wanted themselves perhaps either Fortune or Birth, either Quality or Merit, to introduce them among the good.  
I must needs add one thing more in favour of our Climate, which I heard the King say, and I thought new and right, and truly like a King of England that loved and esteemed His own Country: 'Twas in reply to some of the Company that were reviling our Climate, and extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least of France; He said, He thought that was the best Climate, where He could be abroad in the Air with Pleasure, or at least without Trouble and Inconvenience, the most days of the Year, and the most hours of the Day; and this He thought He could be in England, more than in any Country He knew of in Europe. And I believe it is true, not only of the hot and the cold, but even among our Neighbours in France and the Low-Countries themselves, where the Heats or the Colds, and Changes of Seasons, are less treatable than they are with us.  
The truth is, our Climate wants no Heat to produce excellent Fruits, and the Default of it, is only the short Season of our Heats or Summers, by which many of the later are left behind and imperfect with us. But all such as are ripe before the end of August, are for aught I know, as good with us as any where else. This makes me esteem the true Region of Gardens in England to be the compass of Ten Miles about London, where the accidental warmth of Air, from the Fires and Steams of so vast a Town, makes Fruits as well as Corn a great deal forwarder than in Hampshire or Wiltshire, though more Southward by a full Degree.  
There are, besides the Temper of our Climate, two things particular to us, that contribute much to the Beauty and Elegance of our Gardens, which are the Gravel of our Walks, and the fineness and almost perpetual Greenness of our Turf. The first is not known any where else, and which leaves all their dry Walks in other Countries very unpleasant and uneasy. The other cannot be found in France or in Holland as we have it, the Soil not admitting that fineness of Blade in Holland, nor the Sun that Greenness in France during most of the Summer; nor indeed is it to be found but in the finest of our soils.  
whoever begins a Garden, aught in the first place and above all, to consider the Soil, upon which the taste of not only His Fruits, but His Legumes, and even Herbs and Salads, will wholly depend, and the default of Soil is without remedy; for although all Borders of Fruit may be made, with what Earth you please (if you will be at the charge) yet it must be renewed in two or three years, or it runs into the nature of the Ground where 'tis brought. Old Trees spread their Roots further than any Body's Care extends, or the Forms of the Garden will allow; and after all, where the Soil about you is ill, the Air is so too in a Degree, and has Influence upon the taste of Fruit. What Horace says of the productions of Kitchen Gardens under the Name of Caulis, is true of all the best sorts of Fruits, and may determine the choice of Soil for all Gardens.  
Caule suburbano qui siccis crevit in agris  
Dulcior, irriguis nihil est elutius hortis.  
Plants from dry Fields those of the Town excel,  
Nothing more tasteless is than watered grounds.  
Any Man had better throw away His Care and His Money upon any thing else, than upon a Garden in wet or moist Ground: Peaches and Grapes will have no taste but upon a Sand or Gravel; but the richer these are the better; and neither Salads, Pease or Beans have at all the taste upon a Clay or rich Earth, as they have upon either of the others, though the Size and Colour of Fruits and Plants may perhaps be more upon the worse soils.  
Next to your choice of Soil, is to suit your Plants to your Ground, since of this every one is not Master; though perhaps Varro's Judgement upon this case, is the wisest and the best: For to one that asked Him What He should do, if His Father or Ancestors had left Him a Seat in an ill Air, or upon an ill Soil? He answered, Why sell it and buy another in good. But what if I cannot get half the worth? Why then take a quarter, but however sell it, or any thing rather than live upon it.  
Of all sorts of Soil, the best is that upon a Sandry Gravel, or a Rosiny Sand; whoever lies upon either of these, may run boldly into all the best sort of Peaches and Grapes, how shallow soever the Turf be upon them; and whatever other Tree will thrive in these soils, the Fruit shall be of much finer taste than any other: A richer Soil will do well enough for Apricocks, Plums, Pears or Figs; but still the more of the Sand in your Earth the better, and the worse the more of the Clay, which is proper for Oaks, and no other Tree that I know of.  
Fruits should be suited to the Climate among us, as well as the Soil; for there are degrees of one and the other in England, where 'tis to little purpose to plant any of the best Fruits, as Peaches or Grapes, hardly I doubt beyond Northamptonshire at the furthest Northwards; and I thought it very prudent in a Gentleman of my Friends in Staffordshire, who is a great Lover of His Garden, to pretend no higher, though His Soil be good enough, than to the perfection of Plums, and in these (by bestowing South Walls upon them) He has very well succeeded, which He could never have done in attempts upon Peaches and Grapes; and a good Plum is certainly better than an ill Peach.  
When I was at Cosevelt with that Bishop of Munster that made so much noise in His time, I observed no other Trees but Cherries in a great Garden He had made. He told me the reason was, Because He found no other Fruit would ripen well in that Climate, or upon that Soil, and therefore instead of being curious in others, He had only been so, in the sorts of that, whereof He had so many, as never to be without them from May to the end of September.  
As to the size of a Garden, which will perhaps in time grow extravagant among us, I think from four or five to seven or eight Acres, is as much as any Gentleman need design, and will furnish as much of all that is expected from it as any Nobleman will have occasion to use in His Family.  
In every Garden four things are necessary to be provided for, Flowers, Fruit, Shade, and Water; and whoever lays out a Garden without all these, must not pretend it in any perfection: It ought to lie to the best parts of the House, or to those of the Master's commonest use, so as to be but like one of the Rooms out of which you step into another. The part of your Garden next your House, (besides the Walks that go round it) should be a Parterre for Flowers, or Grassplots bordered with Flowers; or if, according to the newest mode, it be cast all into Grassplots and Gravelwalks, the dryness of these should be relieved with Fountains, and the plainness of those with Statues; otherwise, if large, they have an ill effect upon the Eye. However the part next the House should be open, and no other Fruit but upon the Walls. If this take up one half of the Garden, the other should be Fruit-Trees, unless some Grove for Shade lie in the middle. If it take up a third part only, than the next third may be Dwarf-Trees, and the last Standard Fruit; or else the Second Part Fruit-trees, and the third all sorts of Winter-greens, which provide for all Seasons of the year.  
I will not enter upon any account of Flowers, having only pleased myself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled myself with the Care, which is more the Lady's part than the men's, but the Success is wholly in the Gardener. For Fruits, the best we have in England, or I believe can ever hope for, are, of Peaches, the White and Red Maudlin, the Minion, the Cheureuse, the Ramboullet, the Musk, the Admirable, which is late, all the rest are either varified by Names, or not to be named with these, nor worth troubling a Garden, in my Opinion. Of the Pavies or Hard Peaches, I know none good here but the Newington, nor will that easily hang till 'tis full ripe. The forward Peaches are to be esteemed only because they are early, but yet should find room in a good Garden, at least the White and Brown Nutmeg, the Persian, and the Violet Musk. The only good Nectorins are the Murry and the French; of these there are two sorts, one very round, the other something long, but the round is the best: Of the Murry there are several sorts, but being all hard, they are seldom well ripened with us.  
Of Grapes, the best are the Chasselas, which is the better sort of our White Muscadin, (as the usual Name was); about Sheen, 'tis called the Pearl Grape, and ripens well enough in common years, but not so well as the common Black or Currand, which is something a worse Grape. The Parsley is good and proper enough to our Climate, but all white Frontiniacks are difficult, and seldom ripe unless in extraordinary Summers.  
I have had the Honour of bringing over four sorts into Engalnd; the Arboyse from the Franche Conte, which is a small white Grape, or rather runs into some small and some great upon the same Bunch; it agrees well with our Climate, but is very choice in Soil, and must have a sharp Gravel; it is the most delicious of all Grapes that are not Muscat. The Burgundy, which is a grizelin or pale red, and of all others is surest to ripen in our Climate, so that I have never known them to fail one Summer these fifteen years, when all others have, and have had it very good upon an East Wall. A Black Muscat, which is called the Dowager, and ripens as well as the common White Grape. And the fourth is the Grizelin Frontignac, being of that Colour, and the highest of that Taste, and the noblest of all Grapes I ever eat in England, but requires the hottest Wall and the sharpest Gravel, and must be favoured by the Summer too, to be very good. All these are, I suppose, by this time, pretty common among some Gardeners in my Neighbourhood, as well as several Persons of Quality; for I have ever thought all things of this kind, the commoner they are made, the better.  
Of Figs there are among us the White, the Blue, and the Tawny: The last is very small, bears ill, and I think but a Bauble. Of the Blue there are two or three sorts, but little different, one something longer than the other; but that kind which swells most is ever the best. Of the White I know but two sorts, and both excellent, one ripe in the beginning of July, the other in the end of September, and is yellower than the first; but this is hard to be found among us, and difficult to raise, though an excellent Fruit.  
Of Apricocks the best are the common old sort, and the largest Masculine, of which this last is much improved by budding upon a Peach Stock. I esteem none of this Fruit but the Brussels Apricock, which grows a Standard, and is one of the best Fruits we have, and which I first brought over among us.  
The number of good Pears, especially Summer, is very great, but the best are the Blanket, Robin, Rousselet, Rosati, Sans Pepin, Jargonell. Of the Autumn, the Buree, the Vertelongue, and the Bergamot. Of the Winter, the Vergoluz, Chasseray, St. Michael, St. german, and Ambret: I esteem the Boncretien with us good for nothing but to Bake.  
Of Plums the best are St. Julian, St. Catharine, white and blue Pedrigon, Queen-mother, Sheen-Plum, and Cheston.  
Beyond the sorts I have named, none I think need trouble himself, but multiply these, rather than make room for more kinds; and I am content to leave this Register, having been so often desired it by my Friends upon their designs of Gardning.  
I need say nothing of Apples, being so well known among us; but the best of our Climate, and I believe of all others, is the Golden Pippin, and for all sorts of uses: The next is the Kentish Pippin, but these I think are as far from their perfection with us as Grapes, and yield to those of Normandy, as these to those in Anjou, and even these to those in Gascony. In other Fruits the defect of Sun is in a great measure supplied by the advantage of Walls.  
The next care to that of suiting Trees with the Soil, is that of suiting Fruits to the Position of Walls. Grapes, Peaches, and Winter Pears to be good, must be planted upon full South or Southeast; Figs are best upon Southeast, but will do well upon East, and South-West: The West are proper for Cherries, Plums or Apricocks, but all of them are improved by a South Wall both as to early and taste: North, North-West, or North-East, deserve nothing but Greene's; these should be divided by Woodbines or Jessemins between every Green, and the other Walls, by a Vine between every Fruit-Tree; the best sorts upon the South-Walls, the common White and Black upon East and West, because the other Trees being many of them (especially Peaches) very transitory, some apt to die with hard Winters, others to be cut down and make room for new Fruits: Without this Method the Walls are left for several Years unfurnished; whereas the Vines on each side cover the void space in one Summer, and when the other Trees are grown, make only a Pillar between them of two or three Foot broad.  
Whoever would have the best Fruits in the most perfection our Climate will allow, should not only take care of giving them as much Sun, but also as much Air as he can; no Tree, unless Dwarf, should be suffered to grow within Forty Foot of your best Walls, but the farther they lie open, is still the better. Of all others this Care is most necessary in Vines, which are observed abroad to make the best Wines, where they lie upon sides of Hills, and so most exposed to the Air and the Winds. The way of pruning them too, is best learned from the Vineyards, where you see nothing in Winter, but what looks like a dead stump; and upon our Walls, they should be left but like a ragged Staff, not above two or three Eyes at most upon the Bearing Branches; and the lower the Vine, and fewer the Branches, the Grapes will be still the better.  
The best Figure of a Garden is either a Square or an Oblong, and either upon a Flat or a Descent; they have all their Beauties, but the best I esteem an Oblong upon a Descent. The Beauty, the Air, the View, make amends for the expense, which is very great in finishing and supporting the Terras-walks, in levelling the Parterres, and in the stone Stairs that are necessary from one to the other.  
The perfectest Figure of a Garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor-Park in Hartfordshire when I knew it about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest Wits of Her time, and celebrated by Dr. Donne; and with very great Care, Excellent Contrivance, and much Cost; but greater Sums may be thrown away without effect or Honour, if there want Sense in proportion to Money, or if Nature be not followed, which I take to be the great Rule in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as the Conduct not only of our Lives, but our Governments. And whether the greatest of mortal Men should attempt the forcing of Nature, may best be judged, by observing how seldom God Almighty does it Himself, by so few true and undisputed Miracles, as we see or hear of in the World. For my own part, I know not three wiser Precepts for the Conduct either of Princes or private Men, than  — Servare Modum, Finemque tueri, Naturamque sequi. 
Because I take the Garden I have named, to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the Figure and Disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a Model to those that meet with such a Situation, and are above the regards of common Expense: It lies on the side of a Hill, (upon which the House stands) but not very steep. The length of the House, where the best Rooms, and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the Garden, the great Parlour opens into the middle of a Terras Gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which may be as I remember about three hundred Paces long, and broad in Proportion, the Border set with Standard Laurels, and at large distances, which have the Beauty of Orange-Trees out of Flower and Fruit; from this Walk are three Descents by many stone Steps in the middle and at each end, into a very large Parterre. This is divided into Quarters by Gravel Walks, and adorned with two Fountains and eight Statues in the several Quarters; at the end of the Terras Walk are two Summer-Houses, and the sides of the Parterre are ranged with two large Cloisters open to the Garden, upon Arches of Stone, and ending with two other Summer-Houses even with the Cloisters, which are paved with Stone, and designed for Walks of Shade, there being none other in the whole Parterre. Over these two Cloisters are two Terraces covered with Lead, and fenced with Balusters, and the Passage into these airy Walks is out of the two Summer-Houses at the end of the first Terras-walk. The Cloister facing the South is covered with Vines, and would have been proper for an Orange-house, and the other for Myrtles, or other more common Greene's, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of Gardning had been then in as much Vogue as it is now.  
From the middle of this Parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a Grotto that lies between them (covered with Lead and Flat) into the lower Garden, which is all Fruit-trees ranged about the several Quarters of a Wilderness which is very shady; the Walks here are all green, the Grotto embellished with Figures of Shell Rock-work, Fountains and Water-works. If the Hill had not ended with the lower Garden, and the Wall were not bounded by a common way that goes through the Park, they might have added a third Quarter of all Greene's; but this want is supplied by a Garden on the other side the House, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and a dorned with rough Rock-work and Fountains.  
This was Moor-Park, when I was acquainted with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my Life, either before or since, at home or abroad; what it is now I can give little account, having passed through several hands that have made great Changes in Gardens as well as House; but the remembrance of what it was, is too pleasant ever to forget, and therefore I do not believe to have mistaken the Figure of it, which may serve for a Pattern to the best Gardens of our manner, and that are most proper for our Country and Climate.  
What I have said of the best Forms of Gardens, is meant only of such as are in some sort regular; for there may be other Forms wholly irregular, that may, for aught I know, have more Beauty than any of the others; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of Nature in the Seat, or some great race of Fancy or Judgement in the Contrivance, which may reduce many disagreeing parts into some Figure, which shall yet upon the whole, be very agreeable. Something of this I have seen in some places, but heard more of it from others, who have lived much among the Chinese; a People, whose way of thinking, seems to lie as wide of ours in Europe, as their Country does. Among us, the Beauty of Building and Planting is placed chiefly, in some certain Proportions, Symmetries, or Uniformities; our Walks and our Trees ranged so, as to answer one another, and at exact Distances. The Chineses scorn this way of Planting, and say a Boy that can tell an hundred, may plant Walks of Trees in straight Lines, and over against one another, and to what Length and Extent He pleases. But their greatest reach of Imagination, is employed in contriving Figures, where the Beauty shall be great, and strike the Eye, but without any order or disposition of parts, that shall be commonly or easily observed. And though we have hardly any Notion of this sort of Beauty, yet they have a particular Word to express it; and where they find it hit their Eye at first sight, they say the Sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any such expression of Esteem. And whoever observes the Work upon the best Indian Gowns, or the painting upon their best Skreens or Purcellans, will find their Beauty is all of this kind (that is) without order. But I should hardly advise any of these Attempts in the Figure of Gardens among us; they are Adventures of too hard achievement for any common Hands; and though there may be more Honour if they succeed well, yet there is more Dishonour if they fail, and 'tis twenty to one they will; whereas in regular Figures, 'tis hard to make any great and remarkable Faults.  
The Picture I have met with, in some relations of a Garden made by a Dutch Governor of their Colony, upon the Cape de Buen Esperance is admirable, and described to be of an Oblong-Figure, very large Extent, and divided into four Quarters by long and cross Walks, ranged with all sorts of Orange-trees, Lemons, Limbs, and Citrons; each of these four Quarters is planted with the Trees, Fruits, Flowers and Plants that are native and proper to each of the four parts of the World; so as in this one Enclosure are to be found the several Gardens of Europe, Asia, afric, and America. There could not be in my mind, a greater Thought of a Gardener, nor a nobler Idea of a Garden, nor better suited or chosen for the Climate, which is about Thirty Degrees, and may pass for the Hesperides of our Age, whatever or wherever the other was. Yet this is agreed by all to have been in the Islands or Continent upon the South-West of Africa, but what their Forms or their Fruits were, none that I know, pretend to tell; nor whether their Golden Apples were for taste, or only for sight, as those of Montezuma were in Mexico, who had large Trees with Stocks, Branches, Leaves and Fruits, all admirably composed and wrought of Gold; but this was only stupendious in cost and art, and answers not at all in my Opinion, the delicious Varieties of Nature in other Gardens.  
What I have said of Gardning, is perhaps enough for any Gentleman to know, so as to make no great Faults, nor be much imposed upon, in the Designs of that kind, which I think aught to be applauded and encouraged in all Countries. That and building being a sort of Creation, that raise beautiful Fabrics and Figures out of nothing, that make the Convenience and Pleasure of all private Habitations, that employ many Hands, and circulate much Money among the poorer sort and Artisans, that are a Public Service to ones Country, by the Example as well as effect, which adorn the Scene, improve the Earth, and even the Air itself in some Degree. The rest that belongs to this Subject, must be a Gardener's part, upon whose Skill, Diligence and Care, the Beauty of the Grounds, and Excellence of the Fruits will much depend. Though if the Soil and Sorts be well chosen, well suited, and disposed to the Walls, the Ignorance or Carelessness of the Servants can hardly leave the Master disappointed.  
I will not enter further upon His Trade, than to advise Him in all Plantations either for His Master or Himself, to draw his Trees out of some Nursery that is upon a leaner and lighter Soil than his own where he removes them; without this care they will not thrive in several years, perhaps never, and must make way for new, which should be avoided all that can be; for Life is too short and uncertain, to be renewing often your Plantations. The Walls of your Garden without their Furniture, look as ill as those of your House; so that you cannot dig up your Garden too often, nor too seldom cut it down.  
I may perhaps be allowed to know something of this Trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be good for nothing else, which few Men will do, or enjoy their Gardens, without often looking abroad to see how other matters play, what Motions in the State, and what Invitations they may hope for into other Scenes.  
For my own part, as the Country Life, and this part of it more particularly, were the Inclination of my Youth itself, so they are the Pleasure of my Age; and I can truly say, that among many great Employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or sought for any one of them, but have often endeavoured to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a private Scene, where a Man may go his own way and his own Pace, in the common Paths or Circles of Life.  

Inter cunct a leges & percunct abere doctos  
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum,  
Quid curas minuat, quid te tibi reddat amicum,  
Quid purè tranquillet, honos an dulce lucellum,  
An secretum iter, & fallentis semita vitae.   

But above all, the Learned read and ask  
By what means you may gently pass your Age,  
What lessens Care, what makes thee thine own Friend,  
What truly calms the Mind, Honour or Wealth,  
Or else a private path of stealing Life.   
These are Questions that a Man ought at least to ask himself, whether he asks others or no, and to choose his course of Life rather by his own Humour and Temper, than by common Accidents, or Advice of Friends, at least if the Spanish Proverb be true, That a Fool knows more in his own House than a Wise Man in another's.  
The measure of choosing well, is, Whether a Man likes what he has chosen, which I thank God has befallen me; and though among the Follies of my Life, Building and Planting have not been the least, and have cost me more than I have the confidence to own; yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this Retreat, where since my Resolution taken of never entering again into any Public Employments, I have passed Five Years without ever going once to Town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a House there always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of Affectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want of Desire or Humour to make so small a Remove; for when I am in this Corner I can truly say with Horace,  

Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus,  
Quid sentire putas, quid credis amice precare?  
Sit mihi quod nunc est etiam minus, ut mihi vivam,  
Quod superest aevi, si quid superesse volent Dii.  
Sit bona librorum, & provisae frugis in annum  
Copia, ne dubiae fluitem spe pendulus horae,  
Hoc satis est orasse Jovem qui donat & aufert.   

Me when the cold Digentian Stream revives,  
What does my Friend believe I think or ask?  
Let me yet less possess so I may live  
What e'er of Life remains, unto myself.  
May I have Books enough, and one years' store  
Not to depend upon each doubtful hour;  
This is enough of mighty Jove to pray,  
Who as He pleases gives and takes away.   
That which makes the Cares of Gardning more necessary, or at least more excusable, is that all Men eat Fruit that can get it, so as the choice is only whether one will eat good or ill, and between these the difference is not greater, in point of taste and delicacy, than it is of Health: For the first I will only say, That whoever has used to eat good, will do very great penance when he comes to ill: And for the other, I think nothing is more evident, than as ill or unripe Fruit is extremely unwholesome, and causes so many untimely deaths, or so much sickness about Autumn, in all great Cities where 'tis greedily sold as well as eaten, so no part of Diet, in any season, is so healthful, so natural, and so agreeable to the Stomach, as good and well ripened Fruits; for this I make the measure of their being good; and let the kinds be what they will, if they will not ripen perfectly in our Climate, they are better never planted or never eaten. I can say it for myself at least, and all my Friends, that the season of Summer Fruits is ever the season of health with us, which I reckon from the beginning of June to the end of September, and for all Sicknesses of the Stomach (from which most others are judged to proceed) I do not think any that are like me, the most subject to them, shall complain, when ever they eat thirty or forty Cherries before Meals, or the like proportion of white Figs, soft Peaches, or grapes perfectly ripe. But these after Michaelmas I do not think wholesome with us, unless attended by some fit of hot and dry Wether more than is usual after that Season; When the Frosts or the Rain have taken them, they grow dangerous, and nothing but the Autumn and Winter Pears, are to be reckoned in season, besides Apples, which, with Cherries are of all others, the most innocent Food, and perhaps the best Physic. Now whoever will be sure to eat good Fruit, must do it out of a Garden of His own; for besides the choice so necessary in the sorts, the soil, and so many other circumstances that go to compose a good Garden, or produce good Fruits, there is something very nice in gathering them, and choosing the best even from the same Tree. The best sorts of all among us, which I esteem the white Figs and the soft Peaches, will not carry without suffering. The best Fruit that is bought, has no more of the Master's care, than how to raise the greatest gains; His business is to have as much Fruit as He can, upon as few Trees, whereas the way to have it excellent, is to have but little upon many Trees. So that for all things out of a Garden, either of Salads or Fruits, a Poor Man will eat better, that has one of His own, than a Rich Man that has none. And this is all I think of necessary and useful to be known upon this Subject.   

ESSAY III. Of Heroic Virtue.  
AMONG all the Endowments of Nature, or Improvements of Art, wherein Men have excelled and distinguished themselves most in the World, there are two only, that have had the honour of being called Divine, and of giving that Esteem or Appellation to such as possessed them in very eminent Degrees, which are, Heroic Virtue, and Poetry: For Prophecy cannot be esteemed any Excellency of Nature or of Art, but wherever it is true, is an immediate Gift of God, and bestowed according to His Pleasure, and upon Subjects of the meanest capacity, upon Women or Children, or even things inanimate, as the Stones placed in the High-Priest's Breastplate, among the Jews, which was a sacred Oracle among them.  
I will leave Poetry to an Essay by itself, and dedicate this only to that antiquated Shrine of Heroic Virtue, which however forgotten, or unknown in later Ages, must yet be allowed, to have produced in the World, the advantages most valued among Men, and which most distinguish their Understandings and their Lives, from the rest of their fellow Creatures.  
Though it be easier to describe Heroic Virtue, by the Effects and Examples, than by Causes or Definitions, yet it may be said to arise, from some great and native Excellency of Temper or Genius transcending the common race of Mankind, in Wisdom, Goodness and Fortitude. These ingredients advantaged by Birth, improved by Education, and assisted by Fortune, seem to make that noble composition, which gives such a lustre to those who have possessed it, as made them appear to common eyes, something more than Mortals, and to have been born of some mixture, between Divine and Humane Race; To have been honoured and obeyed in their Lives, and after their Deaths bewailed and adored.  
The greatness of their Wisdom appeared in the Excellency of their Inventions; And these by the Goodness of their Nature, were turned and exercised upon such Subjects, as were of general good to Mankind in the common uses of life, or to their own Countries in the Institutions of such Laws, Orders or Governments, as were of most ease, safety and advantage to Civil Society. Their Valour was employed, in defending their own Countries from the violence of ill Men at home, or Enemies abroad, in reducing their barbarous Neighbours to the same forms and orders of Civil Lives and Institutions; or in relieving others, from the Cruelties and Oppressions of Tyranny and Violence. These are all comprehended, in three Verses of Virgil, describing the blessed Seats in Elysium, and those that enjoyed them.  
Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,  
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per arts,  
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.  
Here such, as for their Country wounds received,  
Or who by Arts invented, Life improved,  
Or by deserving made themselves remembered.  
And indeed, the Character of Heroic Virtue seems to be in short, The deserving well of Mankind. Where this is chief in design, and great in success, the pretence to a Hero lies very fair, and can never be allowed without it.  
I have said, that this Excellency of Genius must be native, because it can never grow to any great height, if it be only acquired or affected; but it must be ennobled by Birth, to give it more Lustre, Esteem and Authority; it must be cultivated by Education and Instruction, to improve its growth, and direct its end and application; and it must be assisted by Fortune, to preserve it to maturity; because the noblest Spirit or Genius in the World, if it falls, though never so bravely, in its first enterprises, cannot deserve enough of Mankind, to pretend to so great a reward as the esteem of Heroic Virtue. And yet perhaps, many a person has died in the first battle or adventure he achieved, and lies buried in silence and oblivion, who had he outlived as many dangers as Alexander did, might have shined as bright in Honour and Fame. Now since so many Stars go to the making up of this Constellation, 'tis no wonder it has so seldom appeared in the World; nor that when it does, it is received and followed with so much gazing, and so much veneration.  
Among the simpler Ages or Generations of Men, in several Countries, Those who were the first Inventors of Arts generally received and applauded, as most necessary or useful to human life, were honoured alive, and after death worshipped as Gods. And so were those who had been the first Authors of any good, and well instituted Civil Government in any Country, by which, the native Inhabitants were reduced from savage and brutish lives, to the safety and convenience of Societies, the enjoyment of Property, the observance of Orders, and the obedience of Laws, which were followed by Security, Plenty, Civility, Riches, Industry and all kinds of Arts. The evident advantages and common benefits of these sorts of Institutions, made People generally inclined at home to obey such Governors, the Neighbour Nations to esteem them, and thereby, willingly enter into their Protection, or easily yield to the force of their Arms and Prowess. Thus Conquests began to be made in the World, and upon the same designs, of reducing Barbarous Nations unto Civil and well Regulated Constitutions and Governments, and of subduing those by force to obey them, who refused to accept willingly the advantages of Life or condition, that were thereby offered them. Such Persons of old, who excelling in those Virtues, were attended by these fortunes, and made great and famous Conquests, and left them under good Constitutions of Laws and Governments; Or who instituted excellent and lasting orders and frames of any Political State, in what compass soever of Country, or under what Names soever of Civil Government, were obeyed as Princes or Lawgivers in their own times, and were called in after Ages, by the name of Heroes.  
From these sources, I believe may be deduced all or most of the Theology or Idolatry, of all the ancient Pagan Countries, within the compass of the Four great Empires, so much renowned in Story, and perhaps of some others, as great in their Constitutions, and as extended in their Conquests, though not so much celebrated or observed by Learned Men.  
From all I can gather, upon the Surveys of ancient Story, I am apt to conclude, that Saturn was a King of Crete, and expelled that Kingdom by his Son. That Jupiter having driven out his Father from Crete, conquered Greece, or at least the Peloponesus; and having among those Inhabitants, introduced the use of Agriculture, of Property and Civility, and established a just and regular Kingdom, was by them adored as chief of their Gods.  Ante Jovem nulli subigerunt arva coloni. 
That His Brothers, Sisters, Sons, and Daughters, were worshipped likewise, for the inventions of things chiefly useful, necessary, or agreeable to Humane Life. So Neptune, for the art or improvement of Navigation; Vulcan, for that of Forging Brass and Iron; Minerva, of Spinning; Apollo, of Music and Poetry; Mercury, of Manual Arts and Merchandise; Bacchus, for the invention of Wine; and Ceres of Corn.  
I do not find any traces left, by which a probable conjecture may be made of the Age, wherein this race of Saturn flourished in the World, nor consequently, what length of time they were adored; for as to Bacehus and Hercules, it is generally agreed, that there were more than one or two of those Names, in very different times, and perhaps Countries, as Greece and Egypt, and that the last, who was Son of Alcmene, and one of the Argonauts, was very modern, in respect of the other more ancient, who was contemporary with the race of Jupiter. But the Story of that Bacehus and Hercules, who are said to have Conquered India, is grown too obscure, by the dark shades of so great Antiquity, or disguised by the mask of Fables, and Fiction of Poets.  
The same divine Honours were rendered by the Egyptians to Osiris, in whose Temple was inscribed on a Pillar, that he had gone through all Countries, and every where taught Men all that he found necessary for the common good of Mankind, By the Assyrians, to Belus, the Founder of that Kingdom, and great Inventor or Improver of Astronomy, among the Chaldaeans, By the Original Latins or Hetruscans, to Janus, who introduced Agriculture into Italy; and these Three were worshipped as Gods, by those ancient and Learned Nations.  
Ninus and Sesostris, were renowned for their mighty Conquests, and esteemed the two great Heroes of Assyria and of Egypt; the first, having extended his Victories, to the River Indus, and the other, those of the Egyptians, over Asia, as far as Pontus. The time of Ninus is controverted among Historians, being by some placed, Thirteen, by others, Eight Hundred Years before Sardanapalus: But that of Sesostris, is in my opinion, much harder to be affirmed. For I do not see, how their opinion can be allowed, who make him to be Sesack, that took Jerusalem in the time of Rehoboam, since no more is said in Scripture, of the progress of that Expedition: Nor is the time of it mentioned in the Grecian Story, though some Records are there found, of all that passed after the Trojan War, and with distinction enough. But the most ancient among them, speak of the Reign of Sesostris, and His mighty Conquests, as very ancient then, and agree the Kingdom of Choleos, to have descended from a Colony there Established by this famous King, as a Monument how far Northward his Victories had extended. Now this Kingdom flourished in the time of the Argonauts, and excelled in those Arts of Magiek and Enchantments, which they were thought to have brought with them out of Egypt; so as I think the Story of this King must be reckoned as almost covered with the Ruins of Time.  
The two next Heroes that enter the Scene, are the Theban Hercules, and Theseus, both renowned among the Greeks, for freeing their Country from Fierce Wild Beasts, or from fiercer and wilder Men that infested them; from Robbers and Spoilers, or from cruel and Lawless Tyrants. Theseus was besides honoured as Founder of the more Civil State or Kingdom of Athens, which City first began to flourish and grow great by his Institutions, though His Father had been King of the Scattered Villages or Inhabitants of Attica.  
In the same Age, flourished Minos' King of Crete, reputed to be Son of Jupiter, who by the force and number of his Fleets, became Lord of the Aegaean Islands, and most of the Coasts of Greece, and was renowned as a Hero, for the justness of his Laws, and the greatness of his Reign.  
For the Heroes, in the time of the Trojan Wars, so much celebrated in those two charming Poems, which from them were called Heroical, though 'tis easy to take their Characters from those admirable Pictures drawn of them by Homer and Virgil, yet 'tis hard to find them in the Relations of any Authentic Story. That which may be observed, is, that all the Conduct and Courage of Hector, were employed in the defence of His Country and his Father against a Foreign Invasion: The valour of Achilles was exercised in the common cause, wherein his whole Nation were engaged upon the fatal Revenge of the Rape of Helen, though he had been assured by certain Prophecies, that he should die before the Walls of Troy; and Aeneas, having employed His utmost Prowess in defence of his Country, saved his Father and the Trojan Gods, gathered up the Remainders of his Ruined Country, sailed to Italy, and there Founded a Kingdom, which gave rise to the Greatest Empire of the World.  
About Two Hundred and Fifty Years after these, Lycurgus instituted the Spartan State, upon Laws and Orders so different from those usual in those Times and Countries, that more than Humane Authority seemed necessary to establish them; and the Pythian Priestess told him, she did not know whether she should call Him a God or a Man. And indeed no Civil or Politic Constitutions have been more celebrated than His, by the best Authors of ancient Story and Times.  
The next Heroes we meet with upon Record, were Romulus and Numa, of which the first, Founded the Roman City and State, and the other, Polished the Civil and Religious Orders of both in such a degree, that the Original Institutions of these two Lawgivers continued as long as that Glorious State.  
The next Hero that came upon the Stage, was Cyrus, who freed His Country from their Servitude to the Medes, erected the Persian Empire upon the ruins of the Assyrian; adorned it with excellent Constitutions and Laws, and extended it Westward, by the Conquest of all the Lesser Asia and Lydia, to the very Coasts of the Aegean Sea. Whether the Picture of Cyrus drawn by Xenophon, be after the life, or only imaginary, we may find in it the truest Character that can be given of Heroic Virtue: And 'tis certain, His Memory was always sacred among the Persians, though not prosecuted by Divine Honours, because that Nation adored one Supreme God, without any Representation or Idol; and in the next place the Sun, to whom alone they offered Sacrifices.  
Alexander, was the next, renowned in Story, having founded the Grecian Monarchy, by the entire Conquest of the Persian, and extended it, by the addition of Greece and Macedon. But he attained not the esteem or appellation of an Hero, though He affected and courted it by His Mother's Stories of His Birth, and by the Flatteries of the Priest and Oracle of Jupiter Ammon. His pretence was justly excluded, by His Intemperance in Wine, in Anger, and in Lust, and more yet by His Cruelties and His Pride; for true Honour has something in it so humorous, as to follow commonly those, who avoid or neglect it, rather than those, who seek and pursue it. Besides, He instituted no orders or frame of Government, in the Kingdoms either of Macedon or Persia; but rather corrupted and disordered those He found: And seems to have owed the success of His Enterprises, to the Counsels and Conduct of His Father's old Officers, after whose disgrace and fall, immediately succeeded that of his Fortune and his Life. Yet he must be allowed, to have much contributed to his own Glory and Fame, by a great native Genius and unlimited Bounty, and by the greatest boldness of Enterprise, scorn of Danger, and fearlesness of Death that could be in any Mortal Man. He was a Prodigy of Valour and of Fortune, but whether his Virtues or his Faults were greatest, is hard to be decided.  
Caesar, who is commonly esteemed to have been Founder of the Roman Empire, seems to have possessed very eminently all the Qualities, both native and acquired, that enter into the Composition of an Hero, but failed of the Attribute or Honour, because He overthrew the Laws of his own Country, and Orders of his State, and raised his greatness by the Conquest of his Fellow Citizens, more than of their Enemies; and after he came to the Empire, lived not to perfect the frame of such a Government, or achieve such Conquests as he seems to have had in design.  
These Four great Monarchies, with the smaller Kingdoms, Principalities and States, that were swallowed up by their Conquests and Extent, make the Subject of what is called Ancient Story, and are so excellently related by the many Greek and Latin Authors, still extant and in common vogue, so commented, enlarged, reduced into order of time and place, by many more of the Modern Writers, that they are known to all Men, who profess to study or entertain themselves with Reading. The Orders and Institutions of these several Governments, their progress and duration, their successes or decays, their events and revolutions, make the common Themes of Schools and Colleges, the Study of Learned, and the Conversation of Idle Men, the Arguments of Histories, Poems and Romances. From the Actions and Fortunes of these Princes and Lawgivers, are drawn the common Examples of Virtue and Honour, the Reproaches of Vice, which are illustrated by the Felicities or Misfortunes that attend them. From the Events and Revolutions of these Governments, are drawn the usual Instructions of Princes and Statesmen, and the Discourses and Reflections of the greatest Wits and Writers upon the Politics. From the Orders and Institutions, the Laws and Customs of these Empires and States, the Sages of Law and of Justice, in all Countries, endeavour to deduce the very common Laws of Nature and of Nations, as well as the particular Civil or Municipal of Kingdoms and Provinces. From these they draw their Arguments and Precedents in all Disputes concerning the pretended Excellencies or Defaults of the several sorts of Governments that are extolled or decried, accused or defended. Concerning the Rights of War and Peace, of Invasion and Defence between Sovereign Princes, as well as of Authority and Obedience, of Prerogative and Liberty, in Civil Contentions.  
Yet the Stage of all these Empires and Revolutions, of all these Heroic Actions, and these famous Constitutions, (how great or how wise soever any of them are esteemed) is but a limited compass of Earth, that leaves out many vast Regions of the World, the which, though accounted barbarous, and little taken notice of in Story, or by any celebrated Authors, yet have a right to come in for their Voice, in agreeing upon the Laws of Nature and Nations (for aught I know) as well as the rest, that have arrogated it wholly to themselves; and besides, in my Opinion, there are some of them, that upon enquiry, will be found to have equalled or exceeded all the others, in the wisdom of their Constitutions, the extent of their Conquests, and the duration of their Empires or States.  
The famous Scene of the four great Monarchies, was that midland part of the World, which was bounded on the East by the River Indus, and on the West by the Atlantic Ocean; on the North by the River Oxus, the Caspian and the Euxine Seas, and the Danube; on the South by the Mountain Atlas, Aethiopia, Arabia, and from thence to the Mouth of Indus, by the Southern Ocean.  
'Tis true, that Semiramis and Alexander are said to have conquered India; but the first seems only to have subdued some parts of it that lie upon the Borders of that River; and Alexander's Achievements there, seem rather like a Journey than a Conquest; and though He pierced through the Country, from Indus to Ganges, yet He left even undiscovered, the greatest parts of that mighty Region, which, by the Ancients was reported, to contain an hundred and eighteen great and populous Nations, and which, for aught I know, were never conquered but by the Tartars.  
I reckon neither Scythia nor Arabia for parts of that ancient Scene of Action and Story; for though Cyrus and Darius entered the first, yet they soon left it, one with loss of His Honour, and the other of his Life. And for Arabia, I neither find it was ever conquered, or indeed well discovered or surveyed, nor much more known, than by the Commerce of their Spices and Perfumes. I mean that part of it, which is called Arabia Foelix, and is environed on three sides by the Sea; for the Northern Skirts, that join to Syria, have entered into the Conquests or Commerce of the four great Empires; but that which seems to have secured the other, is the stony and sandy Deserts, through which no Armies can pass for want of Water.  
Now if we consider the Map of the World, as it lies at present before us, since the discoveries made by the Navigations of these three last Centuries, we shall easily find what vast Regions there are, which have been left out of that ancient Scene on all sides: And though passing for barbarous, they have not been esteemed worth the Pens of any good Authors, and are known only by common and poor Relations of Traders, Seamen, or Travellers; yet by all I have read, I am inclined to believe that some of these out-lying Parts of the World, however unknown by the Ancients, and overlookt by the modern Learned, may yet have afforded as much matter of Action and Speculation, as the other Scene so much celebrated in Story. I mean not only in their vast Extent, and variety of Soils and Climates, with their natural Productions, but even in the excellent Constitutions of Laws and Customs, the wise and lasting Foundations of States and Empires, and the mighty Flights of Conquests that have risen from such Orders and Institutions.  
Now because the first Scene is such a beaten Road, and this so little known or traced, I am content to take a short Survey of four great Schemes of Government or Empire, that have sprung and grown to mighty heights, lived very long, and flourished much in these remote (and as we will have it, more ignoble) Regions of the World: Whereof one is at the farthest degree of our Eastern Longitude, being the Kingdom of China; The next is at the farthest Western, which is that of Peru; The third is the utmost of our Northern Latitude, which is Scythia or Tartary; And the fourth is Arabia, which lies very far upon the Southern.  
For that vast Continent of Africa, that extends between Mount Atlas and the Southern Ocean; Tho it be found to swarm in People, to abound in Gold, to contain many great Kingdoms, and infinite smaller Principalities, to be pierced by those two famous Rivers of the Nile and the Niger, to produce a Race of Men that seem hardly of the same Species with the rest of Mankind; Yet I can not find any Traces of that Heroic Virtue, that may entitle them to any share in this Essay. For whatever remains in Story of Atlas, or His Kingdom of old, is so obscured with Age or Fables, that it may go along with those of the Atlantic Islands, though I know not whether these themselves were by Solon or Plato intended for Fables or no, or for Relations they had met with among the Egyptian Priests, and which perhaps were by them otherwise esteemed.  

SECT. II.  
THE Great and Ancient Kingdom of China is bounded to the East and South by the Ocean, to the North by a Stone Wall of twelve Hundred Miles long, raised against the Invasion of the Tartars; and to the West, by vast and unpassible Mountains or Deserts, which the Labour or Curiosity of no mortal Man has been ever yet known to have pierced thro' or given any account of. When Alexander would have passed the River Ganges, He was told by the Indians, that nothing beyond it was inhabited, and that all was either impassable Marshes, lying between great Rivers, or sandy Deserts, or steep Mountains, full only of Wild Beasts, but wholly destitute of Mankind. So as Ganges was esteemed by Ancients the Bound of the Eastern World: Since the use of the Compass, and extent of Navigation, it is found that there are several populous Kingdoms lie between Ganges and the Deserts or Mountains that divide them from China, as Pegu, Siam, Cirote, and others, lie in this space, coasting along the Borders of Great Rivers Northwards, which are said to run about the length of Indus and Ganges, and all of them to rise from one mighty Lake in the Mountains of Tartary. But from none of these Kingdoms is known any other way of Passage or Commerce into China, than by Sea.  
From Indostan or the Mogul's Country, there is none other usual; and such as travel from thence by Land, are forced to go many Degrees Northward before they turn to the East, to pass many Savage Kingdoms or Countries of the Tartars, to travel through vast sandy Deserts, and other prodigious high and steep Mountains, where no Carriage or Beast is able to pass, but only Men on foot, and over one Mountain particularly, esteemed the highest in the World, where the Air is so thin, that Men cannot travel over it without danger of their Lives, and never in Summer without being poisoned by the Scent of certain Herbs that grow upon it, which is mortal when they are in Flower. After eight or nine months' Journey from the Mogul's Court, several Persons have traveled this Way, till they came to the Wall that defends or divides China from Tartary, and so to the Imperial City of Peking, situate in the Northern parts of this mighty Region, which the Chinese call a World by itself, and esteem themselves the only reasonable and civilised People, having no Neighbours on three sides, and to the North only the Tartars, whom they esteem but another sort of wild or brutish Men; and therefore they say in common Proverb, That the Chineses only see with two Eyes, and all other Men but with one.  
By this Situation, and by a Custom or Law very ancient among them, of suffering no Stranger to come into their Country, or if they do, not permitting Him to go out, or return any more to His own, this vast Continent continued very long and wholly unknown to the rest of the World, and for as much as I can find, was first discovered to us by Paulus Venetus, who about four hundred years ago made a Voyage from Venice, through Armenia, Persia, and several parts of Tartary, to that which He names the Kingdom of Cataya, and to the famous City of Cambalu, (as he calls them) and after seventeen years' residence of His Father and Himself, in that Court of the great Cham, returned to Venice, and left the World a large Account of this Voyage.  
Since His time, and within two or three hundred years several Missionary Friars and Jesuits have upon Devotion or Command of their Superiors, pierced with infinite pains and dangers through these vast and savage Regions, some from the Mogul's Country, some through Armenia and Persia, and arrived at Peking, which I make no question, (by comparing all their several Accounts and Relations) is the same famous City that is called Cambalu by Paulus Venetus, seated in the Northern Provinces of China, which is by Him called Cataya. The reason of this difference in Names, was that when Paulus Venetus was there, the Cham of East Tartary, called Cataya, had possessed Himself by Conquest, of several Northern Provinces of China, as well as that of Peking, where He made His Residence, and which was like the rest of His Empire, called Cataya, and the chief City Cambalu, by a Tartar Name. After some time all these Provinces were again recovered by the Chinese from the Tartars, and returned to their old Chinese Appellations; and the King of China, who then expelled the Tartars, fixed the Seat of His Empire at Peking, (which had been formerly at Nanking and at Quinsay) that the Force of His Armies lying thereabouts, might be ready to defend that Frontier against the furious Invasions of the Tartars, whereof they had several times felt the rage and danger.  
After this recovery, China continued in Peace, and prosperous, under their own Emperors, till about the year 1616, when the Tartars again invaded them, and after a long and bloody War, of above thirty years, in the end made themselves absolute Masters of the whole Kingdom, and so it has ever since continued.  
This Region, commonly known by the name of China, extends about eighteen hundred Miles, or thirty Degrees of Northern and Southern Latitude. It is not esteemed so much of Longitude, but this is more uncertain, the Journey through the whole Country from East to West having not, that I find, been ever performed by any European; and the accounts taken only from report of the Natives. Nor is it easily agreed, where, the habitable parts of China determine Westward, since some Authors say, they end in Mountains, stored only with wild Beasts and wild Men, that have neither Laws nor Language, nor other commerce with the Chinese, than by descents sometimes made upon them, for Rapines or for Rapes; And other Authors say, There are such inaccessible Mountains even in the midst of China, so as the first accounts, may have left out great Countries beyond these Mountains, which they took for the utmost Border of this Kingdom.  
Whatever length it has, which by none is esteemed less, than twelve or thirteen hundred miles; It must be allowed, to be the greatest, richest and most populous Kingdom, now known in the World, and will perhaps be found to owe its Riches, Force, Civility and Felicity, to the admirable constitution of its Government more than any other.  
This Empire consists of fifteen several Kingdoms, which at least have been so of old, though now governed as Provinces, by their several Viceroys, who yet live in Greatness, Splendour, and Riches, equal to great and Sovereign Kings. In the whole Kingdom, are one hundred and forty five capital Cities, of mighty extent and magnificent Building, and one thousand three hundred twenty and one lesser Cities, but all walled round; The number of Villages is infinite, and no Country in the known World so full of Inhabitants, nor so improved by Agriculture, by infinite growth of numerous Commodities, by Canals of incredible length, conjunctions of Rivers, convenience of Ways, for the transportation of all sorts of Goods and Commodities from one Province to another, so as no Country has so great trade, though till very lately, they never had any but among themselves, and what there is now foreign among them, is not driven by the Chinese going out of their Country to manage it, but only by their permission of the Portugueses and Dutch, to come and trade in some skirts of their Southern Provinces.  
For Testimonies of their Greatness, I shall only add what is agreed of their famous Wall, and of their City Peking. The Stone-wall which divides the Northern parts of China from Tartary, is reckoned by some, twelve, by others, nine hundred miles long, running over Rocks and Hills, through Marshes and Deserts, and making way for Rivers by mighty Arches; It is forty five foot high, and twenty foot thick at the bottom, divided at certain spaces by great Towers. It was built above two thousand years ago, but with such admirable Architecture, that where some Gaps have not been broken down by the Tartars upon their Eruptions, the rest is still as entire, as when it was first built. The King that raised this Wall, appointed a Million of Soldiers, who were listed and paid, for the defence of it against the Tartars, and took their turns by certain numbers, at certain times, for the guard of this Frontier.  
The Imperial City of Peking is nothing so large as several other Cities of China (whereof Nanking is esteemed the greatest) but is a regular Foursquare; the Wall of each side is six Miles in length. In each of these sides are three Gates, and on each side of each Gate are great Palaces or Forts for the Guards belonging to them, which are a thousand Men to each Gate. The Streets run quite cross, with a thro' View and Passage from each Gate to that which is over against it in the opposite side, and these Streets are ranged full of stately Houses.  
The Palace of the Emperor is three Miles in Compass, consisting of three Courts, one within the other, whereof the last (where the Emperor lodges) is four hundred paces square. The other two are filled with His Domestics, Officers and Guards, to the number of sixteen thousand Persons. Without these Courts, are large and delicious Gardens, many artificial Rocks and Hills, Streams of Rivers drawn into several Canals faced with square Stone, and the whole achieved with such admirable Invention, Cost and Workmanship, that nothing ancient or modern seems to come near it; and all served with such Magnificence, order and Splendour, that the Audience of a Foreign Ambassador at Peking, seems a sight as Great and Noble, as one of the Triumphs at Rome.  
As other Nations are usually distinguished into Noble and Plebeian, so that of China may be distinguished into Learned and Illiterate. The last makes up the Body or Mass of the People who are governed; the first comprehends all the Magistrates that govern, and those who may in time or course succeed them in the Magistracy; for no other than the Learned are ever employed in the Government, nor any in the greatest Charges, that are not of those Ranks or Degrees of Learning, that make them termed Sages, or Philosophers, or Doctors among them.  
But to comprehend what this Government of China is, and what the Persons employed in it, there will be a necessity of knowing what their Learning is, and how it makes them fit for Government, very contrary to what ours in Europe is observed to do, and the reason of such different effects from the same Cause.  
The two great Heroes of the Chinese Nation were Fohu and Confuchu, whose Memories have always continued among them Sacred and Adored. Fohu lived about four thousand years ago, and was the first Founder of their Kingdom, the progress whereof has ever since continued upon their Records so clear, that they are esteemed by the Missionary Jesuits unquestionable and infallible. For after the Death of every King, the Successor appoints certain Persons to write the Memorable Actions of His Predecessors Reign, and of these, an Epitome is afterwards drawn, and entered into their Registers. Fohu first reduced them from the common Original Lives of Mankind, introduced Agriculture, Wedlock, distinction of Sexes by different Habits, Laws and Orders of Government; He invented Characters, and left several short Tables or Writings of Astronomy, or Observations of the Heavens, of Morality, of Physic, and Political Government. The Characters He used seem to have been parley straight Lines of different Lengths, and distinguished by different points; and partly Hieroglyphics, and these in time were followed by Characters, of which each expressed one word.  
In these several ways, were for many Centuries, composed many Books, among the Chinese, in many sorts of Learning, especially Natural and Moral Philosophy, Astronomy, Astrology, Physic and Agriculture.  
Something above two thousand years ago, lived Confuchu, the most learned, wise and virtuous of all the Chinese, and for whom, both the King and Magistrates, in His own age, and all of them, in the Ages since, seem to have had the greatest Deference, that has any where been rendered to any Mortal Man. He writ many Tracts, and in them digested all the Learning of the Ancients even from the first Writing or Tables of Fohu, at least, all that He thought necessary or useful to Mankind, in their personal, civil or political Capacities, which were then received and since prosecuted, with so great Esteem and Veneration, that none has questioned whatever He writ, but admitted it, as the truest and best Rules of Opinion and Life, so that 'tis enough in all Argument, That Confuchu has said it.  
Some time after, lived a King, who to raise a new Period of Time, from His own Name and Reign, endeavoured to abolish the Memory of all that had passed before Him, and caused all Books to be burnt, except those of Physic and Agriculture. Out of this ruin to Learning, escaped, either by chance, or some private Industry, the Epitomes or Registers of the several successions of their Kings since Fohu, and the works of Confuchu, or at least a part of them, which have lately in France, been printed in the Latin Tongue, with a learned Preface, by some of the Missionary Jesuits, under the Title of the Works of Confutius.  
After the death of this Tyrannous and Ambitious King, These Writings came abroad, and being the only Remainders of the Ancient Chinese Learning, were received with general Applause, or rather Veneration; Four Learned Men having long addicted themselves to the Study of these Books, writ four several Tracts or Comments upon them; and one of the succeeding Kings made a Law, that no other Learning should be taught, studied or exercised but what was extracted out of these five Books; and so Learning has ever since continued in China, wholly confined to the Writings of these five Men, or rather to those of their Prince of Philosophers, the great and renowned Confutius.  
The Sum of His Writings, seems to be a Body or Digestion of Ethics, that is, of all Moral Virtues, either Personal, Oeconomical, Civil or Political, and framed for the Institution and Conduct of men's Lives, their Families, and their Governments, but chiefly of the last; the bent of His thoughts and reasonings, running up and down this Scale, that no People can be happy but under good Governments, and no Governments happy but over good Men; and that for the Felicity of Mankind, all Men in a Nation, from the Prince to the meanest Peasant, should endeavour to be good and wise and virtuous as far as His own Thoughts, the Precepts of others, or the Laws of His Country, can instruct Him.  
The chief Principle He seems to lay down for a Foundation, and builds upon, is, That every Man ought to study and endeavour the improving and perfecting of His own Natural Reason, to the greatest height He is capable, so as He may never (or as seldom as can be) err and swerve from the Law of Nature, in the course and conduct of His Life: That this being not to be done, without much thought, enquiry and dilgence, makes Study and Philosophy necessary, which teaches Men what is good, and what is bad, either in its own Nature or for theirs, and consequently what is to be done and what to be avoided, by every Man is His several Station or Capacity. That in this perfection of Natural Reason, consists the perfection of Body and Mind, and the utmost or supreme Happiness of Mankind. That the means and rules to attain this perfection, are chiefly not to will or desire any thing but what is consonant to this Natural Reason, nor any thing that is not agreeable to the good and happiness of other men, as well as our own. To this end is prescribed, the constant course and practice of the several Virtues, known and agreed so generally in the World, among which, Courtesy or Civility, and Gratitude, are Cardinal with them. In short, the whole scope of all Confutius has writ, seems aimed only, at teaching Men to live well, and to govern well, how Parents, Masters and Magistrates should rule, and how Children, Servants and Subjects should obey.  
All this, with the many particular Rules and Instructions, for either personal, oeconomical, or political Wisdom and Virtue is discoursed by Him, with great Compass of Knowledge, Excellence of Sense, Reach of Wit, and illustrated with Elegance of Style, and Aptness of Similitudes and Examples, as may be easily conceived by any, that can allow for the lameness and shortness of Translations out of Language and Manners of writing, infinitely differing from ours So as the Man appears to have been of a very extraordinary Genius, of mighty Learning, admirable Virtue, excellent Nature, a true Patriot of His Country, and Lover of Mankind.  
This is the Learning of the Chinese, and all other sorts are either disused or ignoble among them; all that which we call Scholastic or Polemic, is unknown or unpractised, and serves, I fear, among us, for little more, than to raise Doubts and Disputes, Heats and Feuds, Animosities and Factions, in all Controversies of Religion or Government. Even Astrology and Physic and Chemistry, are but ignoble Studies, though there are many among them that excel in all these; and the Astrologers are much in vogue among the Vulgar, as well as their Predictions; The Chemists, apply themselves chiefly, to the search of the universal Medicine, for health and length of Life, pretending to make Men Immortal, if they can find it out: The Physicians excel, in the knowledge of the pulse, and of all simple Medicines, and go little further, but in the first, are so skilful, as they pretend not only to tell by it, how many hours or days a sick Man can last, but how many years, a Man in perfect seeming health may live, in case of no accident or violence. And by Simples, they pretend to relieve all Diseases that Nature will allow to be cured. They never let blood, but say, if the Pot boils too fast, there is no need of lading out any of the water, but only of taking away the fire from under it, and so they alloy all heats of the blood, by abstinence, diet and cooling herbs.  
But all this Learning is ignoble and Mechanical among them, and the Confutian only essential and incorporate to their Government, into which none enters, without having first passed thro' the several Degrees. To attain it, is first necessary the knowledge of their Letters or Characters, and to this must be applied at least ten or twelve years' study and diligence, and twenty, for great perfection in it: For by all I can gather out of so many Authors, as have written of China, they have no Letters at all, but only so many Characters, expressing so many Words: These, are said by some, to be sixty, by others eighty, and by others sixscore thousand; and upon the whole, their writing seems to me to be like that of Shorthand among us, in case, there were a different Character invented, for every word in our Language; Their Writing, is neither from the left hand to right like the European, nor from right to left like the Asiatic Languages, but from top to bottom of the paper in one straight line, and then beginning again at the top till the side be full.  
The Learning of China therefore consists first in the Knowledge of their Language, and next, in the Learning, Study and Practice of the Writings of Confutius, and His four great Disciples; and as every Man grows more perfect in both these, so He is more esteemed and advanced; nor is it enough to have read Confutius, unless it be discovered by retaining the principal parts of Him in their memories, and the practice of Him in their lives.  
The Learned among them are promoted by three Degrees; The first may resemble that of Sophisters in our Colleges after two or three years standing, and this Degree is conferred by public Examiner's appointed for that purpose, who go thro' the chief Cities of each Province once a year, and upon scrutiny, admit such of the Candidates as they approve, to this Degree, register their Names, and give them a Badge belonging to this first form of the Learned.  
The second Degree, is promoted with more form, and performed once in three years, in a great College built for that purpose in the chief City of each Kingdom; By several Examiner's appointed by the King, and strict inquiries and questions both of Language and Learning, and much Critic upon the several Writings, produced by the several Pretenders, and submitted to the Examiner's. This Degree, may resemble that of Masters of Arts in our Colleges, and is conferred with a new Badge belonging to it.  
The third Degree may be compared to that of Doctors among us in any of our Sciences, and is never conferred, but in the Imperial City of Peking with great Forms and Solemnities, after much examining, and deliberation of the Persons appointed for that purpose, and of this Degree there are never to be above three hundred at a time in the whole Empire, besides such as are actually in the Magistracy or Government; Who are all chosen out of the Persons that have commenced or attained this degree of Learning. Upon the taking each Degree, they repair to a Temple of Confutius, which is erected in each City, and adjoins to the Colleges; and there they perform the Worship and Ceremonies appointed in honour of His Memory, as the great Prince or Hero of the Learned.  
Of these Persons, all their Councils and all their Magistracies are composed; out of these are chosen all their Chief Officers and Mandarines, both Civil and Military. With these the Emperors and Viceroys of Provinces and Generals of Armies advise, upon all great occasions; and their Learning and Virtue make them esteemed more able for the execution and discharge of all public Employments, than the longest Practice and Experience in other Countries; and when they come into Armies, they are found braver and more generous, in exposing their Lives upon all great occasions, than the boldest Soldiers of their Troops.  
Now for the Government, it is absolute Monarchy, there being no other Laws in China but the King's Orders and Commands; and it is likewise Hereditary, still descending to the next of Blood.  
But all Orders and Commands of the King proceed through His Counsels, and are made upon the Recommendation or Petition of the Council proper and appointed for that Affair; so that all matters are debated, determined, and concluded by the several Councils; and then upon their Advices or Requests made to the King, they are ratified and signed by Him, and so pass into Laws.  
All great Offices of State are likewise conferred by the King, upon the same Recommendations or Petitions of His several Councils; so that none are preferred by the Humour of the Prince Himself, nor by favour of any Minister, by Flattery or Corruption, but by force or appearance of Merit, of Learning, and of Virtue, which observed by the several Councils, gain their Recommendations or Petitions to the King.  
The chief Officers are either those of State residing constantly at Court, and by whom, the whole Empire is governed; Or the Provincial Officers, Viceroys, and Magistrates or Mandarines; For the first, there are in the Imperial City at Peking six several Councils, or as some Authors affirm, one great Council, that divides itself into six smaller but distinct Branches. Some difference is also made by Writers, concerning the nature or the business, of these Councils. But that which seems most generally agreed, is, That the first of these six is a Council of State, by whom all Officers through the whole Kingdom are chosen according to their Learning and Merit. The Second is, the Council of Treasury, which has inspection into the whole Revenue, and the Receipts and Payments that are made in or out of it. The third takes care of the Temples, Offerings, Feasts and Ceremonies belonging to them, as likewise of Learning, and the Schools or Colleges designed for it. The Fourth is the Council of War, which disposes of all Military Offices and Honours, and all matters of War and Peace, that is, by the King's Command issued upon their representations. The fifth takes care of all the Royal or Public Buildings, and of their Fleets. And the sixth is a Council or Court of Justice or Judicature, in all Causes both Civil and Criminal.  
Each of these Councils has a Precedent and two Assistants or chief Secretaries, whereof one sits at His Right, and the other on his Left Hand, who digest and register the Debates and Orders of the Council. And besides these, there are in each Council Ten Counsellors.  
By these Councils the whole Empire of China is governed thro' all the several Kingdoms that compose it; and they have in each Province particular Officers, Intendants and Notaries, from whom they receive constant Accounts, and to whom they send constant Instructions concerning all Passages or Affairs of moment in any of the several Provinces of the Kingdom.  
There are, besides these six, several smaller Councils, as one for the Affairs of the King's Women, for his Household, and His Domestic Chancery or Justice. But above all, is the Council of the Colaos or chief Ministers, who are seldom above five or six in number, but Persons of the most consummate Prudence and Experience, who after having passed, with great Applause, through the other Councils or Governments of Provinces, are at last advanced to this supreme Dignity, and serve as a Privy Council, or rather a Junto, sitting with the Emperor Himself, which is allowed to none of the others. To these are presented, all the Results or Requests of the other Councils, and being by their advice approved, they are, by the Emperor signed and ratified, and so dispatched.  
These are always attended, by some of the chiefest and most renowned Philosophers or Sages of the Kingdom, who attend the Emperor, and serve Him in receiving all Petitions, and give their opinions upon them to the Emperor or the Colaos, as also upon any matters of great moment and difficulty, when they are consulted: And these are chosen out of two Assemblies residing at Peking, and consisting of sixty Men each, but all choice Persons, whose Wisdom and Virtue, are generally known and applauded. They are employed in all matters of Learning, and giving necessary Orders therein, keeping all the public Writings and ordering and digesting them, registering all Laws and Orders of State, and out of these are appointed, by each succeeding King, some persons to relate and register the Times and Actions of His Predecessor. They are, at their leisure much given to Poetry, in which, they compile the Praises of Virtuous Men and Actions, Satyrs against Vice, Inscriptions for Monuments and triumphal Arches, and such like Compositions. And lastly out of these (as they grow in Esteem and Fame of Wisdom and Virtue) are chosen and advanced by Degrees, the Officers of State, and Counsellors in the several Councils, and none ever arrives to be a Colao, that has not been of one of these two Assemblies.  
Each particular Kingdom of the Empire, has the same Councils, or some very like them for the Government of that particular Province; but there is besides in each, a Surintendant, sent more immediately from Court, to inspect the course of Affairs; A Censor of Justice and Manners, without whose approval, no capital Sentences are to be executed; And a third Officer, employed by the Empress, in the nature of an Almoner, whose business is only that of Charity, and Relief of the Poor and distressed, and setting free Prisoners upon small Debts or Offences; There is besides, in each Province, a particular Council, to take care of Learning, and to appoint Rules and Examiner's for the several Degrees thereof.  
It were endless to enumerate, all the excellent Orders of this State, which seem contrived by a reach of Sense and Wisdom, beyond what we meet with, in any other Government of the World; but by some few the rest may be judged.  
Each Prince of the Royal Blood has a Revenue assigned Him, and a City where he is bound to reside, and never to stir out of it, without the Emperor's leave. All Degrees of People are distinguished by their Habit, and the several Officers by several Badges upon them; And the Colour worn by the Emperor, which is Yellow, is never used by any other person whatsoever. Every House has a Board over the Door, wherein is written, the Number, Sex and Quality of the Persons living in it, and to a certain number of Houses, one is appointed to inspect the rest, and take care that this be exactly done. None is admitted to bear Office in any Province, where He was born, unless it be Military, which is grounded, upon the belief, that in matters of Justice Men will be partial to their Friends, but in those of War, Men will fight best for their own Country. None ever continues in any Office above three years, unless upon a new Election; and none put out for miscarriage in His Office, is again admitted to any Employment. The two great hinges of all Governments, Reward and Punishment, are no where turned with greater care, nor exercised with more Bounty and Severity. Their Justice is rigorous upon all Offences against the Law, but none more exemplary, than upon corruption in Judges. Besides this, Inquisition is made into their ignorance and weakness, and even into carelessness and rashness in their Sentences; and as the first is punished with Death, so these are, with Dismission and Disgrace. The Rewards of Honour (besides those of advancement) are conferred, by Patents from the Emperor, expressing Merits and granting Privileges, by Pillars of Marble with elegant and honorary Inscriptions: And to merit extraordinary towards the Prince and Country, even by erecting Temples, offering Incense, and appointing Priests, for the service of them. Agriculture is encouraged by so many special privileges from the Crown, and the Common Laws or Customs of the Country, that whatever Wars happen, the tilers of the Ground are untouched, as if they were sacred, like Priests in other places; so as no Country in the World, was ever known to be so cultivated, as the whole Kingdom of China. Honour and Respect, is no where paid to Nobility or Riches so much, as it is here to Virtue and Learning, which are equally regarded, both by the Prince and the People: And the advancement to Office of persons only for excelling in those Qualities, prevents the Cankers of Envy and Faction, that corrupt and destroy so many other Governments. Every one seeking Preferment here only by Merit, attributes to it that of other Men. Tho the King be the most absolute in the World, since there are no other Laws in China but what He makes; yet all Matters, being first digested and represented by His Councils, the Humours and Passions of the Prince, enter not into the forms or conduct of the Government, but His personal favours to Men or Women, are distributed in the Preferments of His Household, or out of the vast Revenue that is particularly applied to it, for support of the greatest Expense and Magnificence, that appears in any Palace of the World. So that it may truly be said, that no King is better served and obeyed, more honoured or rather adored; and no People better governed, nor with greater Ease and Felicity.  
Upon these Foundations and Institutions, by such Methods and Orders, the Kingdom of China seems to be framed and policed with the utmost Force and Reach of Human Wisdom, Reason and Contrivance, and in Practice, to excel the very Speculations of other Men, and all those imaginary Schemes of the European Wits, the Institutions of Xenophon, the Republic of Plato, the Utopias or Oceanas of our Modern Writers. And this will perhaps be allowed by any that considers the Vastness, the Opulence, the Populousness of this Region, with the Ease and Facility wherewith 'tis governed, and the length of time this Government has run. The last, is three times longer than that of the Assyrian Monarchy, which was thirteen hundred years, and the longest Period of any Government, we meet with in Story. The numbers of People and of their Forces, the Treasures and Revenues of the Crown, as well as Wealth and Plenty of the Subjects, the Magnificence of their public Buildings and Works, would be incredible, if they were not confirmed by the concurring Testimonies of Paulus Venetus, Martinius Kercherus, with several other relations, in Italian, Portugese and Dutch, either by Missionary Friars, or Persons employed thither upon Trade or Embassies upon that occasion; Yet the whole Government is represented, as a thing managed with as much Facility, Order and Quiet, as a common Family, though some Writers affirm the number of People in China, before the last Tartar Wars, to have been above two hundred Millions. Indeed the Canals cut thro' the Country, or made by Conjunctions of Rivers, are so infinite, and of such lengths, and so perpetually filled with Boats and Vessels of all kinds, that one Writer believes, there are near as many People in these, and the Ships wherewith their Havens are filled, who live upon the Water, as those upon the Land.  
'Tis true, that as Physicians say, the highest Degree of Health in a Body, subjects it to the greatest danger and violence of some Disease; so the perfection of this Government or Constitution, has had the same Effect, joined with the accident of their Situation, upon such a Neighbour as the Tartars. For these, by the hardness and poverty of their Country and their Lives, are the boldest and the fiercest People in the World, and the most enterprising, On t'other side, the Excellence of the Chinese Wit and Government, renders them, by great Ease, Plenty and Luxury, in time effeminate, and thereby exposes them to frequent Attempts and Invasions of their savage Neighbours. Three several times, upon their Records, the Tartars have conquered great parts of the Kingdom of China, and after long establishments there, have been expelled. Till (as we said before) about the year 1650. they achieved the complete and entire Conquest of the whole Empire after a bloody War of above thirty years. But the Force of this Constitution and Government, appears in no circumstance or light, so great as in this, that it has waded safe thro' so great Tempests and Inundations, as six changes of Race among their Kings by Civil Wars, and four Conquests by foreign and barbarous Forces. For under the present Tartar Kings, the Government continues still the same, and in the Hands of the Chinese learned; and all the change that appears to have been made, by such a Storm or Revolution has been only, that a Tartar Race sits in the Throne instead of a Chinese; and the Cities and strong places are garrisoned by Tartar Soldiers, who fall by degrees, into the Manners, Customs and Language of the Chinese. So great a Respect or rather Veneration is paid to this wise and admirable Constitution, even by its Enemies and Invaders, that both Civil Usurpers and Foreign Conquerors, vie with Emulation, who shall make greatest Court, and give most support to it, finding no other means, to secure their own Safety and Ease, by the Obedience of the People, than the Establishment and Preservation of their ancient Constitutions and Government.  
The great Idea, which may be conceived, of the Chinese Wisdom and Knowledge, as well as their Wit, Ingenuity and Civility, by all we either read or see of them, is apt to be lessened, by their gross and sottish Idolatry; but this itself, is only among the vulgar or illiterate, who worship after their manner, whatever Idols belong to each City, or Village or Family, and the Temples and Priests belonging to them, are in usual request among the common People and the Women. But the Learned adore the Spirit of the World, which they hold to be Eternal, and this without Temples, Idols or Priests. And the Emperor only is allowed to sacrifice at certain times, by Himself or His Officers, at two Temples in the two Imperial Cities of Peking and Nanking, one dedicated to Heaven and tother to the Earth.  
This I mention to show, how the furthest East and West, may be found to agree in Notions of Divinity, as well as in Excellence of Civil or Politic Constitutions, by passing at one leap from these of China to those of Peru.   

SECT. III.  
'TIS known enough, that about the year 1484; Alonso Sanchez, Master of a Spanish Vessel that usually traded from those Coasts to the Canaries and Madara's, was in His Passage between these Islands, surprised with a furious Storm at East, so violent, that He was forced to let His Ship drive before it without any Sail, and so black, that within twenty eight days He could not take the height of the Sun. That He was at length, cast upon a Shore, but whether Island or Continent, He could not tell, but full of savage People. That after infinite Toils, Dangers and miseries of Hunger and Sickness, He made at length, one of the Tercera Islands, with only five Men left, of seventeen He carried out, and meeting there with the famous Columbo, made Him such Relations and so pertinent Accounts of His Voyage, as gave occasion for the discovery of America, or the West-Indies, by this Man so renowned in our Modern Story.  
Whatever Predictions, have been since found out or applied, towards the Discovery of this New World, or Stories told of a certain Prince in Wales, having run the same Fortune, or of the ancient Carthaginians, I do not find, by all I have read upon this Subject, any reason to believe, that any Mortals, from Europe or Africa, had ever traced these unknown Paths of that Western Ocean, or left the least Footsteps of having discovered those Countries, before Alonso Sanchez and his Crew. Upon the arrival of the Spaniards there with Columbus, they found Nature as naked as the Inhabitants; in most parts no thought of business, further than the most natural Pleasures or Necessities of Life; Nations divided by natural bounds of Rivers, Rocks or Mountains or difference of Language; Quarrels among them, only for Hunger or Lust; the Command in Wars, given to the strongest or the bravest, and in Peace, taken up or exercised by the boldest among them; and their Lives commonly spent in the most innocent entertainments, of Hunting, Fishing, Feasting, or in the most careless leisure.  
There were among them many Principalities, that seemed to have grown up, from the original of Paternal Dominion, and some Communities with Orders and Laws; but the two great Dominions, were those of Mexico and Peru, which had arrived to such extent of Territory, Power and Riches, that amazed those, who had been enough acquainted with the Greatness and Splendour of the European Kingdoms. And I never met with any Story, so entertaining, as the Relations of the several learned Spanish Jesuits and others, concerning these Countries and People, in their native Innocence and Simplicity. Mexico was so vast an Empire, that it was well represented, by the common answer of the Indians, all along that Coast to the Spaniards, when they came to any part, and asked the People whether they were under Montezuma, Quien no's esclavo de Montezuma? or, Who is not a Slave of Montezuma? as if they thought, the whole World was so. They might truly call it Slave, for no Dominion was ever so absolute, so tyrannous, and so cruel, as His. Among other Tributes imposed on the People, one was of Men, to be sacrificed every year, to an ugly deformed Idol, in the great Temple of Mexico. Such numbers as the King pleased of poor Victims, were laid upon such extents of Cities or Villages, or Numbers of Inhabitants, and there chosen by lot, to satisfy such bloody and inhuman Taxes. These were often influenced by the Priests, who when they saw Men grow negligent, either in respect to themselves, or devotion to their Idols, would send to tell the King, that the Gods were hungry, and thereupon, the common Tribute was raised; so as that year, the Spaniards landed and invaded Mexico, there had been above thirty thousand Men sacrificed to this cruel Superstition. And this was said, to have given great occasion, for the easy Conquests of the Spaniards, by the willing Revolts and Submissions of the Natives, to any new Dominion.  
The same was observed to happen in Peru, by the general hatred and aversion of the People in that Empire to Atahualpa, who being a Bastard of the Yncas Family, had first, by Practices and Subtlety, and afterwards by Cruelty and Violence, raised Himself to the Throne of Peru, and cut off with merciless Cruelty, all the Masculine Race of the true Royal Blood, that were at Man's estate or near it, after that Line had lasted pure and sacred, and reigned with unspeakable Felicity, both to themselves and their Subjects, for above eight hundred years.  
This Kingdom is said to have extended near seven hundred Leagues in length, from North to South, and about an hundred and twenty in breadth; 'Tis bounded on the West, by the Pacifick Ocean; on the East, by Mountains impassable for Men or Beasts, and as some write even Birds themselves, the height being such, as makes their Tops always covered with Snow, even in that warm Region. On the North, 'tis bounded with a great River, and on the South with another, which separates it from the Province of Chili, that reaches to the Magellan Straits.  
The Kingdom of Peru, deduced its original, from their great Heroes, Mango Copac and His Wife and Sister Coya Mama, who are said, to have first appeared in that Country, near a mighty Lake, which is still sacred with them upon this occasion.  
Before this time, the People of these Countries are reported to have lived like the Beasts among them, without any Traces of Orders, Laws or Religion, without other Food than from the Trees or the Herbs, or what Game they could catch, without further Provision than for present Hunger, without any Clothing or Houses, but dwelled in Rocks or Caves or Trees, to be secure from Wild Beasts, or in Tops of Hills, if they were in fear of fierce Neighbours. When Mango Gopac and His Sister, came first into these naked Lands, as they were persons of excellent Shape and Beauty, so they were adorned with such clothes as continued afterwards the usual habit of the Ynca's, by which Name they called themselves. They told the People who came first about them, that they were the Son and Daughter of the Sun, and that their Father, taking pity of the miserable Conditions of Mankind, had sent them down to reclaim them, from those bestial Lives, and to instruct them, how to live happily and safely, by observing such Laws, Customs and Orders as their Father the Sun, had commanded these his Children to teach them. The great Rule they first taught was, That every Man should live according to Reason, and consequently, neither say nor do any thing to others, that they were not willing others should say or do to them, because it was against all common Reason, to make one Law for ourselves, and another for other People. And this was the great Principle of all their Morality. In the next place, that they should Worship the Sun, who took Care of the whole World, gave Life to all Creatures, and made the Plants grow, and the Herbs fit for Food to Maintain them; and was so careful and so good, as to spare no Pains of his own, but to go round the World every day, to inspect and provide for all that was upon it, and had sent these his two Children down on purpose, for the Good and Happiness of Mankind, and to rule them with the same Care and Goodness that he did the World. After this, they taught them the Arts most necessary for Life, as Mango-Capac, to sow Mayz (or the Common Indian Grain) at certain Seasons, to preserve it against others, to build Houses against Inclemencies of the Air, and Danger of Wild-beasts, to distinguish themselves by Wedlock into several Families, to clothe themselves, so as to cover at least the shame of Nakedness, to tame, and nourish such Creatures, as might be of common use and sustenance. Coya Mama taught the Women to Spin and Wove, both Cotton, and certain coarse Wools of some Beasts amongst them.  
With these Instructions and Inventions they were so much believed in all they said, and adored for what they did and taught of common utility, that they were followed by great numbers of People, observed and obeyed like Sons of the Sun, sent down from Heaven to instruct and to govern them. Mango-Capac had in his Hand a rod of Gold about two Foot long, and five Inches round. He said, that his Father the Sun had given it him, and bid him when he traveled Northward from the Lake, he should every time he rested, strike this Wand down into the ground, and where at the first struck it should go down to the very top, he should there build a Temple to the Sun, and fix the Seat of his Government.  
This fell out to be in the Vale of Cozco, where he founded that City, which was head of this great Kingdom of Peru.  
Here he divided his Company into two Colonies or Plantations, and called one the high Casco, and t'other the low, and began here to be a Law giver to these People. In each of these were at first a Thousand Families, which he caused all to be Registered, with the numbers in each. This he did by Strings of several Colours, and Knots of several Kind's and Colours upon them, by which, both accounts were kept of things and times, and as much expressed of their minds, as was necessary in a Government, were neither Letters nor Money, nor consequently Disputes or Avarice, with their consequences, ever entered.  
He instituted Decurions through both these Colonies, that is, one over every Ten Families, another over Fifty, a third over a hundred, a fourth over five Hundred, and a fifth over a Thousand; and to this last, they gave the name of a Curaca or Governour. Every Decurion was a Censor, a Patron, and a Judge or Arbiter in small Controversies among those under his charge. They took care that every one clothed themselves, laboured, and lived according to the orders given them by the Ynea's, from their Father the Sun; among which one was, That none who could work should be idle, more than to rest after labour; and that none who could not work, by Age, Sickness, or Invalidity should want, but be maintained by the others pains. These were so much observed, that in the whole Empire of Peru, and during the long race of the Ynca Kings, no Beggar was ever known, and no Woman ever so much as went to see a Neighbour, but with their Work in their hands, which they followed all the time the Visit lasted. Upon this, I remember a strain of refined Civility among them, which was, that when any Woman went to see another of equal or ordinary Birth, she worked at her own Work in the others House, but if she made a Visit to any of the Pallas' (which was the name by which they called all the Women of the true Royal Blood, as Ynca's was that of the Men) than they immediately desired the Palla to give them a piece of her own Work, and the Visit passed in working for her. Idleness, sentenced by the Decurions, was punished by so many stripes in public, and the disgrace was more sensible than the pain. Every Colony had one supreme Judge, to whom the lower Decurions remitted great and difficult cases, or to whom (in such case) the Criminals appealed. But every Decurion that concealed any Crime of those under his Charge, above a day and a night, became guilty of it, and liable to the same punishment. There were Laws or Orders likewise against Theft, Mutilations, Murders, Disobedience to Officers, and Adulterers, (for every Man was to have one lawful Wife, but had the Liberty of keeping other Women, as he could). The Punishment of all Crimes, was either Corporal Pains, or Death, but commonly the last, upon these two reasons which they gave; first, That all Crimes whether great or small, were of the same nature, and deserved the same punishment, if they were committed against the Divine Commands, which were sent them down from the Sun: Next, that to punish any Man in his Possessions or Charges, and leave him alive and in strength and liberty, was to leave an ill Man more incensed, or necessitated to commit new Crimes. On t'other side, they never forfeited the Charge or Possessions of a Son for his Father's Offences, but the Judges only remonstrated to him the guilt and punishment of them for his warning or example. These Orders had so great force and effect, that many times a whole year passed without the execution of one Criminal.  
There is no doubt, but that which contributed much to this great order in the State, was the disuse of other possessions than what were necessary to Life, and the eminent Virtue of their first great Hero or Legislator, which seemed to have been entailed upon their whole Race in the course of their Reign: So as in the whole length of it 'tis reported among them, that no true Ynca was ever found guilty or punished for any Crime. Thus particular qualities have been observed in old Rome, to be constant in the same Families for several hundred years, as Goodness, Clemency, Love of the People in that of the Valerij, Haughtiness, Pride, Cruelty, and Hatred of the People in that of the Appijs, which may come from the force of Blood, of Education, or Example. 'Tis certain, no Government was ever established and continued by greater Examples of Virtue and Severity, nor any ever gave greater Testimonies, than the Ynca's, of an excellent Institution, by the Progresses and Successes, both in the propagation and extent of Empire, in force and plenty, in greatness and Magnificence of all public Works, as Temples, Palaces, Highways, Bridges, and in all Provisions necessary to common ease, safety, and utility of human Life; so as several of the Jesuits, and particularly Acosta, are either so just or so presuming, as to prefer the Civil Constitutions of Mango-Copac before those of Lycurgus, Numa, Solon, or any other Lawgivers, so celebrated in the more known parts of the World.  
To every Colony was assigned such a Compass of Land, whereof one part was appropriated to the Sun, a second to the Widows, Orphans, Poor, Old or Maimed; a third to the peculiar Maintenance of every Family, according to their Number; and a fourth to the Ynca. In this order the whole was Tilled, and the Harvest or Product, laid up in several Granaries; out of which it was distributed by Officers to that purpose, according to the several uses for which it was designed, and new Seed issued out at the Season for the new Tillage.  
Every Decurion, besides the Office of a Censor and Judge, had that likewise of a Patron or Solicitor, for Relief of the Necessities or Wants of those under his Charge. They were bound to give in to the Public Registers, an Account of all that were Born, and of all that died under their Charge. None was suffered to leave the Colony or People he was born in without Leave, nor to change the Habit commonly used in it, (by some Parts or Marks whereof those of each Province were distinguished.) None to Marry out of it, no more than the Ynca's out of their own Blood.  
The Ynca that Reigned was called Capa Ynca, which the Spaniards interpret Solo Sennor, or Only Lord. He ever Married the first of his Female Kindred, either Sister, Niece, or Cousin, to preserve the Line the purest they could. Once in two years he assembled all the unmarried Ynca's, Men above Twenty, and Women above Sixteen years old, and there in public Married all such as he thought fit, by giving each of their Hand one to another. The same was done among the Vulgar, by the Curaca of each People.  
Every Family at their Time of Meals, eat with their Doors open, so that all might see their Temperance and Order.  
By these, and other such Laws and Institutions, Mango-Copac first settled his Government or Kingdom in the Colonies of Cozco, which were in time multiplied into many others, by the willing Consluence and Recourse of many several People round about him, alured by the Divine Authority of his Orders, by the Sweetness and Clemency of his Reign, and by the Felicity of all that lived under it; and indeed, the whole Government of this Race of the Ynca's, was rather like that of a tender Father over his Children, or a just, careful, and well-natured Guardian over Pupils, than of a Lord or Commander over Slaves or Subjects. By which they came to be so honoured or adored, that it was like Sacrilege for any common Person so much as to touch the Ynca without his Leave; which was given as a Grace to those who served him well, or to new Subjects that submitted to him.  
After the Extent of his Kingdom into great Compasses of Territory round Cozco, by voluntary Submission of the People, as to some Evangelical rather than Legal Doctrines or Institutions; Mango-Copac assembled all his Curaca's, and told them, that his Father the Sun had commanded him to extend his Institutions and Orders as far as he was able, for the Good and Happiness of Mankind; and for that purpose, with Armed Troops to go to those remoter Parts that had not yet received them, and to reduce them to their Observance. That the Sun had commanded him to hurt or offend none that would submit to him, and thereby accept of the Good and Happiness that was offered him by such Divine Bounty, but to distress only such as refused, without killing any that did not assail them, and then to do it justly in their own Defence.  
For this Design, he form and assembled Troops of Men, Armed both with Offensive, and chiefly with Defensive Weapons. He cast them into the Order of Decurions, in the same manner as he had done Families; To every Ten Men was one Officer, another to Fifty, and another to One Hundred, a Fourth to Five Hundred, and a Fifth to a Thousand. There was a Sixth over Five Thousand, and a Seventh as a General, over Ten Thousand; of which number his first Army was composed.  
With this and other such Armies, he reduced many new Territories under his Empire, declaring to every People he approached, the same things he had done first to those who came about him near the great Lake, and offering them the benefit of the Arts he had taught, the Orders he had instituted, the Protection he had given his Subjects, and the Felicity they enjoyed under it. Those who submitted were received into the same Rights and Enjoyments with the rest of his Subjects. Those who refused were distressed, and pursued by his Forces till they were necessitated to accept of his Offers and Conditions. He used no Offensive Weapons against any till they attacked them, and then Defensive only at first, till the danger and slaughter of his Men grew otherwise unavoidable; Then he suffered his Forces to fall upon them, and kill without Mercy, and not to spare even those that yielded themselves, after having so long and obstinately resisted. Those who submitted after the first Threats or Distresses, or Bloodless Opposition, he received into Grace, suffered them to touch his Sacred Person, made great and common Feasts for them and his own Soldiers together for several days, and then incorporated them into the Body of his Empire, and gave to each of them clothes to Wear, and Corn to Sow.  
By these ways, and such Heroic Virtues, and by the length of his Reign, he so far extended his Dominions, as to divide them into four Provinces, over each whereof he appointed an Ynca to be a Viceroy (having many Sons grown fit to Command) and in each of them established three Supreme Councils, the first of Justice, the second of War, and the third of the Revenue, of which an Ynca was likewise Precedent, which continued ever after.  
At the end of a long and adored Reign, Mango-Copac fell into the last Period of his Life; upon the approach whereof, he called together all his Children and grandchildren, with his eldest Son, to whom he left his Kingdom: And told them, that for his own part he was going to repose himself with his Father the Sun from whom he came; that he advised and charged them all, to go on in the paths of Reason and Virtue which he had taught them, till they followed him the same Journey; that by this course only, they would prove themselves to be true Sons of the Sun, and be as such honoured and esteemed. He gave the same Charge more especially, and more earnestly to the Ynca his Successor, and commanded him to govern his People according to his Example, and the Precepts he had received from the Sun; and to do it always with Justice, Mercy, Piety, Clemency, and Care of the Poor; and when he the Prince should go in time to Rest with his Father the Sun, that he should give the same Instructions and Exhortations to his Successor. And this Form was accordingly used in all the Successions of the Race of the Ynca's which lasted eight hundred years with the same Orders, and the greatest Felicity that could be of any State.  
I Will say nothing of the greatness, magnificence and riches of their Buildings, Palaces, or Temples, especially those of the Sun; of the Splendour of their Court, their Triumphs after Victories, their Hunt and Feasts, their Military Exercises and Honours. But as testimonies of their Grandeur, mention only two of their Highways, whereof one was Five Hundred Leagues, plain and leveled through Mountains, Rocks, and Valleys, so that a Carriage might drive through that whole length without difficulty. Another very long and large, paved all with cut or squared Stone, fenced with low Walls on each side, and set with Trees, whose Branches gave Shade, and the Fruits Food, to all that passed.  
I shall end this Survey of their Government, with one Remark upon their Religion, which is, that tho' the Vulgar Worshipped only the Sun, yet the Amautas, who were their Sages or Philosophers, taught, that the Sun was only the great Minister of Pachacamac, whom they adored in the first place, and to whom a great and sumptuous Temple was Dedicated. This word is interpreted by the Spaniards, Animador del Mundo, or, He that animates or enlivens the World, and seems to be yet a more refined Notion of the Deity, than that of the Chinese, who adored the Spirit and Soul of the World. By this principle of their Religion, as all the others of their Government and Policy, it must, I think, be allowed, that Human Nature is the same in these remote, as well as the other more known and celebrated parts of the World. That the different Governments of it are framed and cultivated, by as great reaches and strength of Reason and of Wisdom, as any of ours, and some of their Frames less subject to be shaken by the Passions, Factions, and other Corruptions, to which those in the middle Scene of Europe and Asia, have been so often and so much exposed. That the same Causes produce every where the fame Effects, and that the same Honours and Obedience, are in all places but Consequences or Tributes paid to the same Heroic Virtue, or Transcendent Genius, in what parts soever, or under what Climates of the World it fortunes to appear.   

SECT. IV.  
THE Third Survey I proposed to make in this Essay upon Heroic Virtue, was that of the Northern Region, which lies without the Bounds of the Euxin and Caspian Seas, the River Oxus to the East, and the Danube to the West, which by the Greeks and Romans, was called all by one general Name of Scythia, and little known to any Princes or Subjects of the four great Monarchies, otherwise than by the defeats or disgraces received in their Expeditions against these fierce Inhabitants of those barren Countries: Such was the fatal Overthrow of Cyrus and his Army, by the Eastern Scythians, and the shameful Flight of Darius from the Western.  
This vast Region which extends from the North-East Ocean, that bounds Cataya and China to the North-West, that washes the Coasts of Norway, Jutland, and some Northern Parts of Germany, tho' comprised by the Ancients under the common name of Scythia was distinguished into the Asiatic and the European, which were divided by the River Tanais, and the Mountains out of which it rises. Those numerous Nations may be called the Eastern Scythians, who lie on that side of the Tanais, or at least the Volga, and those the Western that lie on this. Among the first, the Massagetae were the most known or talked of by the ancient Writers; and among the last, the Getae and the Sarmatae. The first is now comprehended under the general name of great Tartary, and the second under those of the lesser Tartary, Muscovy, Poland, Sueden, and Denmark; the two last styling themselves Kings of the Goths and Vandals.  
How far this vast Territory is inhabited Northward by any Race of Mankind, I think none pretends to know, nor from how remote Corners of those Frozen Mountains, some of those fierce Nations first crept out, whose Force and Arms have been so known and felt, by all the rest of what was of Old called the Habitable World.  
Whether it be that the course of Conquest has run generally from the North to the South, as from the harder upon the softer, or from the poorer upon the richer Nations, because Men commonly Attack with greater. fierceness and courage than they Defend, being in one spirited by desire, and in the other usually damped by Fear; I cannot tell, but certain it is, how Celebrated soever the four great Monarchies have been, by the Writings of so many famous Authors, who have Eternised their Fame, and thereby their own; yet there is no part of the World that was ever Subject to Assyrian, Persian, Greek, or Roman Empires (except perhaps some little Islands) that has not been Ravaged and Conquered by some of those Northern Nations, whom they reckoned and despised as Barbarous: Nor where new Empires, Kingdoms, Principalities, or Governments, have not been by them erected upon the ruins of the Old, which may justly Mortify the Pride of Mankind, the Depths of their Reasonings, the Reach of their Politics, the Wisdom of their Laws, and Force of their Discipline, and may be allowed for a great and undisputed Triumph of Nature over Art.  
'Tis agreed in Story, that the Scythians Conquered the Medes, during the period of that Race in the Assyrian Empire, and were Masters of Asia for fifteen years, till they returned home upon Domestic Occasions. That Cyrus was beaten and slain by their Fury and Revenge, under the leading of a Woman, whose Wit and Conduct made a great Figure in Ancient Story; That the Romans were defeated by the Parthians, who were of the Scythian Race.  
But the great Hero of the Eastern Scythians or Tartars, I esteem to have been Tamerlane; and whether he was Son of a Shepherd or a King, to have been the greatest Conqueror that was ever in the World, at least that appears upon any present Records of Story. His Achievements were great upon China, where he subdued many Provinces, and forced their King to such Conditions of a Peace, as he was content to impose. He made War against the Muscovites with the same success, and partly by force, partly by consent, gained a passage through their Territories for that vast Army, which he led against Bajazet (than the Terror of the World) He conquered this proud Turk and his whole Empire, as far as the Hellespont, which he crossed, and made a Visit to the poor Greek Emperor at Constantinople, who had sent to make Alliance with him upon his first Invasion of Bajazet, at whose Mercy this Prince then almost lay, with the small remainders of the Grecian Empire. Nothing was greater or more Heroical in this Victorious Tamerlane, than the Faith and Honour wherewith he observed this Alliance with the Greeks: For having been received at Constantinople, with all the Submissions that could be made him, having viewed and admired the Greatness and Structure of that Noble City, and said, it was fit to make the Seat for the Empire of the World; and having the offer of it freely made him by the Greeks to possess it for his own, yet after many Honours exchanged between these two Princes, he left this City in the freedom, and the Greek Emperor in the Possessions he found them, went back into Asia, and in his return Conquered Syria, Persia, and India, where the great Moguls have ever since boasted to be the Race of Tamerlane. After all these Conquests he went home, and passed the rest of his Age in his own Native Kingdom, and died a fair and natural Death, which was a strain of Felicity as well as Greatness, beyond any of the Conquerors of the Four Renowned Monarchies of the World. He was without question, a Great and Heroic Genius, of great Justice, exact Discipline, generous Bounty, and much Piety, adoring one God, though he was neither Christian, Jew, nor Mahometan, and deserved a nobler Character than could be allowed by modern Writers, to any Person of a Nation so unlike themselves.  
The Turks were another Race of these Eastern Scythians, their Original Country being placed by some upon the North-East, by others upon the North-West-Coast of the Caspian Sea, and perhaps both may have contributed to furnish such numbers as have overrun so great a part of Asia, Europe, and Africa. But I shall have occasion to say more of them and their Conquests in the next Section.  
That part of Scythia that lies between the two Rivers of the Volga and Boristhenes, whereof the one runs into the Caspian, and t'other into the Euxine Sea, was the Seat of the Getae, whom Herodotus mentions, as then known by the name of Getae Immortales, because they believed that when they died, they should go to Zamolxis, and enjoy a new Life in another World, at least such of them as lived according to his Orders and Institutions, who had been a great Prince or Lawgiver among them. From this Name of Getae came that of Gothae, and this part of Scythia, in its whole Northern extent, I take to have been the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty Swarms of Barbarous Nations, who under the several Names of Goths, Vandals, alan's, Lombard's, Huns, Bulgars, Francs, Saxons, and many others, broke in at several times and places upon the several Provinces of the Roman Empire, like so many Tempests, tore in pieces the whole Fabric of that Government, framed many new ones in its Room, changed the Inhabitants, Language, Customs, Laws, the usual Names of Places and of Men, and even the very Face of Nature where they came, and Planted new Nations and Dominions in their Room. Thus Italy, after many Spoils and Invasions of the Goths and Vandals, came to be possessed by the Lombard's, Pannonia by the Huns, Thracia by the Bulgars, the Southern parts of Spain or Andaluzia by the Vandals, the East or Catalonia, by the Cattis and Alani; the rest of that Continent by the Goths. Gaul was subdued by the Francs, and Britain by the Saxons; both which Nations are thought to have come anciently from the more Northern Regions, and seated themselves in those parts of Germany, that were afterwards called by their Names, from whence they proceeded in time to make their later Conquests. The Scutes who Conquered Scotland and Ireland, and possessed them under the Names of Albin Scutes, and Irin Scutes, I guess to have come from Norway, and to have retained more of the ancient Scythians (before the Goths came into those parts) both in their Language and Habit, as that of Mantles, and in the Custom of removing from one part to another, according to the Seasons or Conveniences of Pasture. The Normans that came into France, I take likewise to be a later Race from Norway, but after the Gothick Orders and Institutions had gained more Footing in that Province.  
The Writers of those Times content themselves to lay the Disgraces and Ruins of their Countries, upon the numbers and fierceness of these Savage Nations that invaded them, or upon their own dis-unions and disorders, that made way for so easy Conquests: But I cannot believe, that the strange Successes and Victorious Progresses of these Northern Conquerors, should have been the Effect only of Tumultuary Arms and Numbers, or that Governments erected by them, and which have lasted so long in Europe, should have been framed by unreasonable or unthinking Men. 'Tis more likely, that there was among them some Force of Order, some Reach of Conduct, as well as some Principle of Courage above the common Strain; that so strange Adventures could not be achieved, but by some enchanted Knights.  
That which first gave me this thought, was the Reflection upon those Verses in Lucan.  
— Populus quos despicit Arctos  
Faelices errore suo, quos ille timorum  
Maximus haud urget lethi metus, inde ruendi  
In ferrum mens prona viris, animique capaces  
Mortis, & ignavum rediturae parcere vitae.  
By this passage it appears, that sixteen hundred years ago those Northern People were distinguished from all others, by a fearlesness of Death, grounded upon the belief of another Life, which made them despise the care of preserving this.  
Whether such an Opinion were first infused amongst them by Zamolxis, and propagated by Odin amongst his Followers, or by Him invented, I will not conjecture; it may have been either one or tother, since the Goths He led into the North-West parts of Europe, are agreed to have come from the Getae, who are placed near the River Tanais. For those vast Scythian Regions were divided into infinite several Nations, separated by the common natural Bounds of Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Woods or Marshes. Each of these Countries, was like a mighty Hive, which by the vigour of Propagation, and health of Climate, growing too full of People, threw out some new Swarms at certain periods of time that took Wing, and sought out some new abode, expelling or subduing the old Inhabitants, and seating themselves in their rooms, if they liked the conditions of place and commodities of Life they met with; if not, going on till they found some other more agreeable to their present Humours or Dispositions. Sometimes the expelled Nations took heart, and when they fled from one Country, invaded another, and revenged the Injuries of some cruel Neighbours, upon others that were weaker but more innocent, and so like Waves, thrust on one the other, for mighty length of Space or Countries. Sometimes the Conquerors augmented their Numbers and Forces with the strongest and most adventurous of those Nations they first invaded, by their voluntary Accession into the Shares or Hopes of their future Fortunes, and so went on to further Conquests.  
The usual Manner of these Expeditions, was, That when a Country grew too full of People for the growth of it to supply, they assembled together all that were fit to bear Arms, and divided themselves into two Bands, whereof one stayed at home, to inhabit and defend their own, and t'other went to seek new Adventures, and possess some other they could gain by Force of Arms; and this was done sometimes by Lot, and sometimes by Agreement between the two Divisions. That Band or Colony that went abroad chose their Leader, among those in most Repute and Esteem for Wisdom or for Courage, and these were their Commanders or Generals in War; and if they lived and succeeded, were the first Princes of those Countries they Conquered and chose for the Seat of their New Colony or Kingdom.  
It seems agreed by the curious Enquirers into the Antiquities of the Runick Language and Learning, that Odin or Woden or Goden (according to the different Northern Dialects) was the first and great Hero of the Western Scythians. That he led a mighty swarm of the Geteses under 

Excerpta ex Edda.  
Hic Odinus Fatidicus erat, ut & ejus Conjux, unde nomen suum in Septentrione prae cunctis Regibus maxime celebratum iri praevidit. Hàc motus causà ex Turcia iter molitus erat, adjuncto sibi magno numero militum Juvenum & Seniorum utriusque sexus. Quascunque terras peragrarunt, divinis efferebantur encomiis, Diis quam hominibus similiores ab universis judicati, nec prius substiterunt quam terram ingressi essent quae nunc Saxonia appellatur, ubi per multos annos Odinus vixit, istamque Regionem late possedit, quam cum distribuisset inter Filios, ita ut Vagdeggo Orientalem Saxoniam, Begdego West phaliam, Siggo Franconiam determinavit; ipse in aliam migravit regionem, quae tunc Reidgotolandia dicibatur, & quicquid ibi placuit sibi vindicavit. Huic terrae praefecit filium Skioldam ex quo Freidlefus genitus est cujus posteri Skioldungar, five Skioldiades nominantur, a qua stirpe Daniae Reges descenderunt, ista Reidgotolandia, nunc Jutlandia appellatur.  
Ex Snorrone.  
Odinus Heros in Asgordia prope Tanaim, Sacrorum Gentilium Summus antistes, duodecim Senatores qui caeteris pietate & sapientia praestarent Religioni curandae & Juri dicundo praefecit. Hic magnanimus & fortis bellator innumera regna ditionesque suam redegit in Potestatem. Manus ducum suorum vertici imponens eos consecrabat, qui in pugnam euntes nomen Odini nuncupabant. Othinus fratribus suis Regnum Asgar diae commisit, ipse in Russiam profectus & inde in Saxoniam, eam sibi subjugavit, & filiis in regendum commisit. Inauditi generis miracula variis exercuit praestigiis, Magisterium publicum Magiae praecipiendae instituit: In varias formarum species se transmutare noverat, tantâ eloquii dulcedine audientes demulcere poterat ut dictis ejus nullam non fidem adhiberent. Carminibus inter loquendum crebrò prolatis miram Sermoni Gratiam conciliabat: Tantâ ludificandorum oculorum peritià callebat, ut saepe corpus suum velut spiritu suppresso humi prosterneret, Evigilans se longinquas oras peragrasse, & quid ibi rerum gereretur comperisse asseverabat. Ad summum Runis suis & incantationibus incredibilia patrando tam clarum sibi nomen peperit ut sapientiae & potentiae suae & Asianorum per omnes brevi nationes sit debitum, quò evenit ut Sueci aliique populi Boreales Odino, Sacrificia dependerent. Post obitum multis apparuit, multis victoriam contulit, alios in Walhalde, id est, aulam Plutonis invitavit.   the name of Goths, from the Asiatic Scythia into the farthest North-West Parts of Europe: That he seated and spread his Kingdom round the whole Baltic Sea, and over all the Islands in it, and extended it Westward to the Ocean, and Southward to the Elve, (which was anciently esteemed the Bound between the Scythians and the Germans.) That this vast Country was in the ancient Gothick term called Biarmia, and is by some Authors termed, Officina Gentium, having furnished all those Swarms of Goths, Vandals, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, Normans, which so often infested, and at length subdued all the Western Provinces of Europe. Some write, that he extended his Conquests even as far as Franconia itself; but all agree, that this Odin was the first Inventor of, or at least the first Engraver of the Runick Letters or Characters, sometimes so famous, and at last so infamous in the World, by the vulgar Opinion and Imputation of all sorts of Charms, Enchantments, or Witchcrafts to the Use and Force of those strange Characters. That He instituted many excellent Orders and Laws, made the distinction of Seasons, the divisions of Time, was an Invincible Warrior, a wise Lawgiver, loved and obeyed during Life, by his Subjects; and after his Death adored as one of their three chief Gods, amongst which he was the God of War, Thor of Thunder and Tempests, Frea of Pleasure, by whose Names, for an eternal Memory, three days of the Week are called.  
I will not enter into His Story, nor that of His Succession, or the infinite and famous Revolutions it produced in the World, nor into the more curious search of the time of His Expedition, which must have been very Ancient, and is thereby left doubted and undetermined: But if it be true, that He was Inventor of the Runick Characters, some Writers of that Language will make Him older than Evander, by affirming their Runick Letters to have been more Ancient than the Latin, which were first brought into Italy in His time. For my own part, I should guests, by all I have perused of those Antiquities, that this Expedition may have been made two thousand years ago or thereabouts. So much is true, that the Runes were for long periods of time in use, upon materials more lasting than any others employed to that purpose; for instead of Leaves or Barks, or Wax or Parchments, these were engraven upon Stone or Planks of Oaks, upon Artificial Obelisks or Pillars, and even upon Natural Rocks, in great Numbers and Extent of Lines. But more of this Runick Subject will occur upon that of Poetry; and I shall only observe, among the Constitutions of these Northern People, three Principles of a strain very extraordinary, and perhaps peculiar to themselves, and which extend very far into the Fortunes and Conquests of their Arms, and into the force and duration of their Kingdoms. The first of these is a Principle of Religion or Superstition, the next of Learning, and the last of Policy or Civil Government.  
Whether the first were deduced from that of Zamolxis, among the Geteses styled of old Immortals, or introduced by Odin among the Western Goths, 'tis certain, that an Opinion was fixed and general among them, That Death was but the entrance into another Life; that all men who lived lazy and unactive Lives, and died natural Deaths, by Sickness or by Age, went into vast Caves under ground, all dark and miry, full of noisome Creatures usual in such places, and there for ever grovelled in endless stench and misery. On the contrary, all who gave themselves to warlike Actions and Enterprises, to the Conquest of their Neighbours, and Slaughter of Enemies, and died in Battle, or of Violent Deaths upon bold Adventures or Resolutions, they went immediately to the vast Hall or Palace of Odin, their God of War, who Eternally kept open House for all such Guests, where they were entertained at infinite Tables, in perpetual Feasts and Mirth, Carousing every Man in Bowls made of the Sculls of their Enemies they had slain, according to which numbers every one in these Mansions of Pleasure was the most Honoured and the best entertained.  
How this Opinion was printed in the Minds of these fierce Mortals, and what effect it had upon their Thoughts and Passions, concerning Life and Death, as it is touched Elegantly in those Verses of Lucan before recited, so it is lively represented in the twenty fifth and twenty ninth Stanza of that Song or Epicedium of Regner Ladbrog, one of their famous Kings, which He composed in the Runick Language, about eight hundred years ago, after He was mortally stung by a Serpent, and before the Venom seized upon His Vitals. The whole Sonnet is recited by Olaus Wormius in his Literatura Runica (who has very much deserved from the Commonwealth of Learning) and is very well worth reading, by any that love Poetry; and to consider the several stamps of that Coin, according to several Ages and Climates. But that which is extraordinary in it, is, that such an alacrity or pleasure in dying, was never expressed in any other Writing, nor imagined among any other People. The Two Stanza's be thus translated into Latin by Olaus.  

Stanza XXV.  
Pugnavimus ensi us,  
Hoc ridere me facit semper  
Quod Balderi Patris Scamna  
Parata scio in aula,  
Bibemus Cerevisiam  
Ex concavis crateribus craniorum,  
Non gemit vir fortis contra mortem  
Magnifici in Odini domibus,  
Non venio desperabundus  
Verbis ad Othini aulam.   

Stanza XXIX.  
Fert animus finire,  
Invitant me Dysae  
Quas ex Odini aula  
Othinus mihi misit  
Laetus cerevisiam cum Asis  
In summa sede bibam  
Vitae elapsae sunt horae,  
Ridens Moriar.   
I am deceived, if in this Sonnet, and a following Ode of Scallogrim, (which was likewise made by Him after He was condemned to die, and deserved his Pardon for a Reward) there be not a vein truly Poetical, and in its kind Pindaric, taking it with the allowance of the different Climates, Fashions, Opinions, and Languages of such distant Countries.  
I will not trouble myself with more passages out of these Runick Poems, concerning this Superstitious Principle, which is so perfectly represented in these, with the possession it had taken of the Noblest Souls among them; for such this Lodbrog appears to have been, by His perpetual Wars and Victories in those Northern Continents, and in England, Scotland, and Ireland. But I will add a Testimony of it, which was given me at Nimeguen, by Count Oxenstern the first of the Suedish Ambassadors in that Assembly. In discourse upon this Subject, and confirmation of this Opinion having been general among the Goths of those Countries; He told me, there was still in Sueden a place which was a memorial of it, and was called Odinshall. That it was a great Bay in the Sea, encompassed on three sides with steep and ragged Rocks; that in the Time of the Gothick Paganism, men that were either sick of Diseases they esteemed mortal or incurable, or else grown invalid with Age, and thereby past all military Action, and fearing to die meanly and basely (as they esteemed it) in their Beds, they usually caused themselves to be brought to the nearest part of these Rocks, and from thence threw themselves down into the Sea, hoping by the boldness of such a violent Death, to renew the Pretence of Admission into the Hall of Odin, which they had lost, by failing to die in Combat and by Arms.  
What effect such a Principle (sucked in with instruction and education, and well believed) must have upon the Passions and Actions of a People naturally strong and brave, is easy to conceive, and how far it went, beyond all the strains of the boldest and firmest Philosophy; for this reached no farther than Constancy in Death, or Indifferency in the Opinion of that or of Life; but the other infused a Scorn of Life, and a desire of Death; nay, fear and aversion even for a natural Death, with pursuit and longing for a violent one (contrary to the general Opinions of all other Nations) so as they took Delight in War and Dangers, as others did in Hunting or such active Sports, and fought as much for the hopes of Death as of Victory, and found as much pleasure in the supposed Advantages and Consequences of one, as in the real Enjoyments of the other. This made them perpetually in New Motions or Designs, fearless and fierce, in the Execution of them, and never caring in Battle to preserve their Lives, longer than to increase the Slaughter of their Enemies, and thereby their own Renown here, and Felicity hereafter. For my part, when I consider the force of this Principle, I wonder not at the effects of it, their numerous Conquests, nor immensity of Countries they subdued, nor that such strange Adventures should have been finished by such enchanted Men. But when Christianity introduced among them, gave an end to these Delusions, the restless humour of perpetual Wars and Action was likewise allayed, and they turned their Thoughts to the establishment of their several Kingdoms, in the Provinces they had subdued and chosen for their Seats, and applied themselves to the Orders and Constitutions of their Civil or Political Governments.  
Their Principle of Learning, was, That all they had among them was applied to the Knowledge and Distinction of Seasons, by the course of the Stars, and to the prognostics of Wether, or else to the Praises of Virtue, which consisted among them only, in Justice to their own Nation, and Valour against their Enemies; and the rest was employed in displaying the brave and heroic Exploits of their Princes and Leaders, and the Prowess and Conquests of their Nation: All their Writings were composed in Verse, which were called Runes or Viises, and from thence the Term of Wise came: And these Poets or Writers being esteemed the Sages among them, were as such, always employed in the attendance upon their Princes, both in Courts and Camps, being used to advise in their Conduct, and to Record their Actions, and Celebrate their Praises and Triumphs. The Traces of these Customs have been seen within the Compass of this very Age, both in Hungary and Ireland, where, at their Feasts it was usual, to have these kind of Poets entertain the Company with their rude Songs, or Panegyrics of their Ancestors bold Exploits, among which, the Number of Men that any of them had slain with their own hands, was the chief ingredient in their praises. By these, they rewarded the Prowess of the old Men among them, and inflamed the Courage of the young, to equal the boldness and achievements of those that had traveled before them in these paths of Glory.  
The Principle of Politic or Civil Government in these Northern Nations, seems derived from that which was Military among them. When a new Swarm was upon the Wing, they chose a Leader or General for the Expedition, and at the same time the chief Officers to command the several Divisions of their Troops; these were a Council of War to the General, with whom they advised, in the whole progress of their Enterprise, but upon great occasions, as a Pitch Battle, any military exploit of great difficulty and danger, the choice of a Country to fix their Seat, or the conditions of Peace that were proposed, they Assembled their whole Troops, and Consulted with all the Soldiers or People they commanded. This Tacitus observes, to have been in use, among the Germane Princes in His time, to consult of smaller Affairs with the chief Officers, but de Majoribus omnes.  
If a Leader of these Colonies succeeded in his Attempts, and conquered a new Country, where by common consent they thought fit to reside, He grew a Prince of that Country while He lived, and when He died, another was chosen to succeed him by a general Election. The Lands of the subdued Territory were divided into greater and smaller Shares, besides that reserved to the Prince and Government. The great, were given to the chief Officers of the Army, who had best deserved, and were most esteemed; the smaller, to the common or private Soldiers. The Natives conquered, were wholly despoiled of their Lands, and reckoned but as Slaves by the Conquerors, and so used for labour and servile Offices, and those of the conquering Nation were the Freemen. The great Sharers, as chief Officers, continued to be the Council of the Prince in Matters of State, as they had been before in matters of War. But in the great Affair, and of common concernment, all that had the smaller Shares in Land, were assembled and advised with. The first great Shares were in process of time called Baronies; and the Small, Fees.  
I know very well how much Critic has been employed, by the most Learned, as Erasmus and Selden, as well as many others, about the two Words Baro and Feudum, and how much Pains have been taken, to deduce them from the Latin, Greek, and even the Egyptian Tongues; but I find no reason, after all they have said, to make any doubt of their having been both Original of the Gothick or Northern Language; or of Baro, being a Term of Dignity, of Command, or of Honour among them; and Feudum, of a Soldiers Share of Land. I find the first used above eight hundred years ago, in the Verses mentioned of King Lodbrog, when one of his Exploits was, to have Conquered eight Barons. And though Fees or Feuda were in use under later Roman Emperors, yet they were deprived from the Gothiek Customs, after so great numbers of those Nations were introduced into the Roman Armies, and employed upon the Decline of that Empire, against other more barbarous Invasions. For of all the Northern Nations, the Goths were esteemed the most civil, orderly, and virtuous, and are for such commended by St. Austin and Salvian, who makes their Conquests, to have been given them by the Justice of God, as a Reward of their Virtue, and a punishment upon the Roman Provinces for the Viciousness and Corruptions of their Lives and Governments.  
From the Divisions, Forms and Institutions already deduced, will naturally arise and plainly appear the Frame and Constitution of the Gothick Government, which was peculiar to them, and different from all before, known or observed in Story, but so universal among these Northern Nations, that it was under the Names of King, or Prince or Duke and His Estates, established in all parts of Europe, from the North-east of Poland and Hungary, to the South-west of Spain and Portugal, though these vast Countries had been subdued by so many several Expeditions of these Northern Nations, at such divers times, and under so different Appellations. And it seems to have been invented or instituted by the Sages of the Goths, as a Government of Freemen, which was the Spirit or Character of the North-West Nations, distinguishing them from those of the South and the East, and gave the Name to the Francs among them.  
I need say nothing of this Constitution, which is so well known in our Island, and was anciently the same with ours in France and Spain, as well as Germany and Sueden, where it still continues, consisting of a King or Prince, who is Sovereign both in Peace and War, of an Assembly of Barons (as they were originally called) whom He uses as his Council, and another of the Commons, who are the Representative of all that are possessed of Free-Lands, whom the Prince assembles and consults with, upon the occasions or affairs, of the greatest and common concern to the Nation. I am apt to think that the Possession of Land, was the Original Right of Election or Representative among the Commons, and that Cities and Boroughs were entitled to it, as they were possessed of certain Tracts of Land, that belonged or were annexed to them. And so it is still in Friezland, the Seat from whence our Gothick or Saxon Ancestors came into these Islands. For the ancient Seat of the Gothick Kingdom, was of small or no Trade; nor England in their Time. Their Humours and Lives were turned wholly to Arms, and long after the Norman Conquest, all the Trade of England was driven by Jews, Lombard's, or Milaners, so as the right of Boroughs seems not to have arisen from Regards of Trade, but of Land, and were places where so many Freemen inhabited together, and had such a Proportion of Land belonging to them. However it be, this Constitution has been celebrated, as framed with great Wisdom and Equity, and as the truest and justest Temper that has been ever found out between Dominion and Liberty; and it seems to be a strain of what Heraclitus said, was the only Skill or Knowledge of any Value in the Politics, which was the Secret of Governing All by All.  
This seems to have been intended by these Gothick Constitutions, and by the Election and Representation of All that possessed Lands; for since a Country is composed of the Land it contains, they esteemed a Nation to be so, of such as were the Possessors of it. And what Prince soever can hit of this great Secret, needs know no more, for his own Safety and Happiness, or that of the People He governs. For no State or Government can ever be much troubled or endangered by any private Factions, which is grounded upon the general consent and satisfaction of the Subjects, unless it be wholly subdued by the force of Armies; and then the standing Armies have the Place of Subjects, and the Government depends upon the contented or discontented Humours of the Soldiers in general, which has more sudden and fatal consequences upon the Revolutions of State than those of Subjects in unarmed Governments. So the Roman, Egyptian, and Turkish Empires, appear to have always turned upon the Arbitrary Wills, and Wild Humours of the Praetorian Bands, the Mamalukes, and the Janissaries. And so I pass from the Scythian Conquests and Gothick Constitutions to those of the Arabians or mahometans in the World.  

SECT. V.  
THE last Survey I proposed, of the Four out-lying (or if the Learned so please to call them, Barbarous) Empires, was that of the Arabians, which was indeed of a very different Nature from all the rest, being built upon Foundations, wholly Enthusiastic, and thereby very unaccountable to common Reason, and in many Points contrary even to Human Nature; yet few others have made greater Conquests or more sudden Growths, than this Arabian or Saracen Empire; but having been of later Date, and the course of it engaged in perpetual Wars with the Christian Princes, either of the East or West, of the Greek or the Latin Churches, both the Original and Progress of it, have been easily observed, and are more vulgarly known, having been the Subject of many Modern Writers, and several well-digested Histories or Relations, and therefore I shall give but a very Summary Account of both.  
About the year 600, or near it, lived Mahomet, a Man of mean Parentage and Condition, illiterate, but of great Spirit and subtle Wit, like those of the Climate or Country where He was born or bred, which was that part of Arabia called the Happy, esteemed the loveliest and sweetest Region of the World, and like those blessed Seats so finely painted by the Poet,  
Quas neque concutiunt venti, neque nubila nimbis  
Aspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina  
Cana cadens violate, semperque innubilus aether  
Contegit, & late diffuso lumine ridet.  
He was Servant to a rich Merchant of this Country, and after his Master's Death, having Married his Widow, came to be possessed of great Wealth, and of a numerous Family: Among others, he had entertained in it a Sergian Monk, or at least called by that Name, whose vicious and libertine Dispositions of Life, had made him leave his Enclosure and Profession, but otherwise a Man of great Learning. Mahomet was subject to Fits of an Epilepsy or Falling-Sickness, and either by the Customs of that Climate, or the necessity of that Disease, very temperate and abstaining from Wine, but in the rest voluptuous and dissolute. He was ashamed of his Disease, and to disguise it from his Wife and Family, pretended his Fits were Trances, into which he was cast at certain times by God Almighty, and in them instructed in his Will, and His true Worship and Laws, by which he would be served; and that He was commanded to publish them to the World, to teach them and see them obeyed.  
About this Age all the Christian Provinces of the East were overrun with Arianism, which however refined or disguised by its learned Professors and Advocates, either denied or undermined the Divinity of Christ, and allowed only His Prophetical Office. The Countries of Arabia and Egypt, were filled with great numbers of the scattered Jews, who upon the last Destruction of their Country in Adrian's time, had fled into these Provinces to avoid the Ruin and even Extinction, which was threatened their Nation by that Emperor, who after all the Desolations He made in Judea, transported what He could of their remaining Numbers into Spain. The rest of Arabia and Egypt, was inhabited by Gentiles, who had little Sense left of their decayed, and derided Idolatry, and had turned their Thoughts and Lives to Luxury and Pleasure, and to the desires and acquisition of Riches; in order to those ends, Mahomet, to humour and comply with these three sorts of Men, and by the assistance of the Monk his only Confident, framed a Scheam of Religion he thought likely to take in, or at least not to shock the common Opinions and dispositions of them all, and yet most agreeable to his own Temper and Designs.  
He professed one God Creator of the World, and who governed all things in it. That God had in ancient times sent Moses His first and great Prophet, to give His Laws to Mankind, but that they were neither received by the Gentiles, nor obeyed by the Jews themselves, to whom he was more peculiarly sent. That this was the occasion of the Misfortunes and Captivities that so often befell them. That in the later Ages He had sent Christ, who was the Second Prophet, and greater than Moses, to preach His Laws and Observation of them, in greater Purity, but to do it with Gentleness, Patience & Humility, which had found no better reception or success among Men than Moses had done. That for this Reason God had now sent his lást and greatest Prophet, Mahomet, to publish his Laws and Commands with more Power, to subdue those to them by Force and Violence, who should not willingly receive them, and for this end to establish a Kingdom upon Earth that should propagate this Divine Law and Worship, throughout the World: That as God had designed utter Ruin and Destruction to all that refused them, so to those that professed and obeyed them, He had given the Spoils and Possessions of His and their Enemies, as a Reward in this Life, and had provided a Paradise hereafter, with all sensual enjoyments, especially of beautiful Women new created for that purpose; but with more Transcendent Degrees of Pleasure and Felicity to those that should die in the pursuit and propagation of them, through the rest of the World, which should in time submit or be subdued under them. These, with with the severe Prohibition of drinking Wine, and the Principle of Predestination, were the first and chief Doctrines and Institutions of Mahomet, and which were received with great Applause, and much Confluence of Arians, Jews and Gentiles in those Parts; some contributing to the rise of his Kingdom by the Belief of his Divine Mission and Authority; many, by finding their chief Principles or Religious Opinions, contained or allowed in them; but most by their Voluptuousness and Luxury, their Passions of Avarice, Ambition and Revenge being thereby complied with. After his Fits or Trances, he writ the many several Parts or Chapters of His Koran, as newly inspired and dictated from Heaven, and left in them, that which to us, and in its Translations, looks like a wild Fanatic Rhapsody of his Visions or Dreams, or rather of His Fantastical Imaginations and Inventions, but has ever passed among all his Followers, as a Book Sacred and Divine; which shows the strange difference of Conceptions among Men.  
To be short, this Contagion was so violent, that it spread from Arabia into Egypt and Syria, and his Power increased with such a sudden Growth as well as his Doctrine, that he lived to see them overspread both those Countries, and a great part of Persia; the Decline of the Old Roman Empire, making easy way for the powerful ascent of this new Comet, that appeared with such wonder and terror in the World, and with a flaming Sword made way wherever it came, or laid all desolate that opposed it.  
Mahomet left two Branches of his Race, or Succession, which was in both esteemed Divine among his Mussulmans or Followers; the one was continued in the Caliphs' of Persia; and tother of Egypt and Arabia. Both these, under the common Appellation of Saracens, made mighty and wonderful Progress, the one to the East, and th'other to the West.  
The Roman Empire, or rather the remainders of it, seated at Constantinople, and afterwards called the Greek, was for some times past most cruelly infested, and in many parts shaken to pieces, by the Invasions or Incursions of many barbarous Northern Nations, and thereby disabled from any vigorous opposition to this new and formidable Enemy. Besides, the Divisions among Christians made way for their Conquests, and the great increase of Proselytes to this new Religion. The Arians persecuted in the Eastern Provinces by some of the Greek Emperors (of the same Faith with the Western or Roman Church) made easy turns to the Mahometan Doctrines, that professed Christ to have been so Great and so Divine a Prophet, which was all in a manner that they themselves allowed Him. The cruel Persecutions of other Grecian Princes against those Christians, that would not admit the use of Images, made great Numbers of them go over to the Saracens, who abhorred that Worship as much as themselves. The Jews were alured by the profession of Unity in the Godhead, which they pretended not to find in the Christian Faith, and by the great Honour that was paid by the Saracens to Moses, as a Prophet and a Law giver sent immediately from God into the World. The Pagans met with an Opinion of the old Gentilism, in that of Predestination, which was the Stoic Principle, and that whereinto unhappy Men commonly fell, and sought for Refuge in the uncertain Conditions or Events of Life, under Tyrannical and Cruel Governments. So as some Roman Authors observe, that the Reigns of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero made more Stoics in Rome, than the Precepts of Zeno, Chrysippus, and Cleanthes.  
The great Extent and Power of the Persian Branch or Empire, continued long among the Saracens, but was overrun at length by the Turks first, and then by the Tartars under Tamerlane, whose Race continued there till the time of Ishmael, from whom the present Sophies are derived. This Ishmael was an Enthusiast, or at least a Pretender to new Revelations in the Mahometan Religion. He professed to Reform both their Doctrines and their Manners, and taught, That Haly alone of Mahomet's Followers, aught to be owned and believed as His True Successor, which made the Persians ever since esteem the Turks for Heretics, as the Turks do them. He gained so many Followers by his new and refined Principles, or Professions of Devotion, that he made himself King of Persia, by the same way that the Xeriffs came to be Kings of Morocco and Fez about Charles the Fifth's time, and Cromwell to be Protector of England, and Oran Zeb to be great Mogul in our Age, which were the four great Dominions of the Fanatic Strain.  
The Arabian Branch of the Saracen Empire, after a long and mighty growth in Aeygpt and Arabia, seems to have been at its Height under the great Almanzor, who was the illustrious and renowned Hero of this Race, and must be allowed to have as much excelled, and as eminently, in Learning, Virtue, Piety, and Native Goodness, as in Power, in Valour, and in Empire: Yet this was extended from Arabia through Egypt, and all the Northern Tracts of Africa, as far as the Western Ocean, and over all the considerable Provinces of Spain. For it was in his Time, and by his Victorious Ensigns, that the Gothick Kingdom in Spain was Conquered, and the Race of those Famous Princes ended in Rodrigo. All that Country was reduced under the Saracen Empire, (except the Mountains of Leon and Oviedo) and were afterwards divided into several Moorish Kingdoms, whereof some lasted to the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabel. Nay, the Saracen Forces, after the Conquest of Spain, invaded the Southern parts of France, and proceeded with the same success as far as Tours, till they were beaten and expelled by Charles Martel, who by those exploits raised his Renown so high, as to give him the Ambition, of leaving the Kingdom of France to his own Line, in Pepin and Charlemagne, by the desposition and extinction of the first Race, which had lasted from Pharamont.  
I do not remember ever to have read a greater and a nobler Character of any Prince, than of this Great Almanzor, in some Spanish Authors or Translators of his Story out of the Arabian Tongue, wherein the Learning then remaining in the World flourished most; and that of ancient Greece, as it had been translated into their Language, so it seems to have been, by the Acuteness and Excellency of those more Southern Wits, in some parts very much improved.  
This Kingdom continued Great, under the Caliphs' of Egypt, who degenerating from the Example and Virtues of Almanzor, came to be hated of their Subjects, and to secure themselves from them, by a mighty Guard of Circassian Slaves. These were bought young from the Country now called Mengrelia, between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, the ancient Seat of the Amazons, and which has, in past and present times, been observed to produce the bravest Bodies of Men, and most beautiful of Women, in all the Eastern Regions. These Slaves were called Mamalues when they came into Egypt, and were brought up with care, and in all Exercises and Discipline, that might render them the most martial Troops or Bands of Soldiers that could any where be composed, and so they proved. The commander of this mighty band or guard of Mamulucks, was called their Sultan, who was absolute over them, as the General of an Army is in time of War. They served for some time to support the Government of the Caliphs', and enslave the Egyptians, till one of the Sultan's finding his own Power, and the general disesteem wherein the Caliph was fallen, by the effeminate Softness or Luxury of his Life, deposed him first, than slew him, and took upon Himself the Government of Egypt, under the name of Sultan, and reigned by the sole Force and Support of his Mamalue Troops, which were continually increased by the Merchandise and Transportation of Circassian Slaves. This Government lasted, with great Terror in Egypt, between two and three hundred Years, during which time the new Sultan's were elected, upon the Death or Deposing of the Old, by the Choice of the Mamalucs, and always out of their own Bands. The Sons of the Deceased Sultan's enjoyed the Estates and Riches left by their Fathers; but by the Constitutions of the Government no Son of a Sultan was ever either to succeed, or even to be elected Sultan: So that in this, contrary to all others ever known in the World, to be born of a Prince, was a certain and unalterable Exclusion from the Kingdom: and none was ever to be chosen Sultan, that had not been actually sold for a Slave, brought from Circassia, and trained up a private Soldier in the Mamaluc Bands. Yet of so base Metal were form several Men, who made mighty Figures in their Age, and no Nation made so brave a resistance against the growing Empire of the Turks, as these Mamalues did under their Sultan's, till they were conquered by Selim, after a long War, which looked in Story like the Combat of some fierce Tiger with a Savage Boar, while the Country that is wasted by them are Looker's on, and little concerned, under whose Dominion and Cruelty they fall.  
It is not well agreed amongst Authors, whether the Turks were first called into Asia by the Greek or the Persian Emperors; but 'tis by all, that falling down in great Numbers, they revolted from the Assistance of their Friends, set up for themselves, embraced he Mahometan Religion, and improved the Principles of that Sect; by new Orders and Inventions (cast wholly for Conquest and extent of Empire) they framed a Kingdom, which under the Ottoman Race subdued both the Greek Empire, and that of the Arabians, and rooted itself in all those vast Dominions as it continues to this day, with the Addition of many other Provinces to their Kingdom, but yet many more to the Mahometan Belief. So this Empire of the Turks, like a fresh Graft upon one Branch of a vigorous Stock, covered wholly that upon which it was grafted, and out-grew in time the other which was natural, as the Persian Branch.  
The chief Principles upon which this fierce Government was founded and raised to such a height, were first those of Mahomet, already deduced, which by their sensual Paradise and Predestination, were great incentives of Courage and of Enterprise, joined to the Spoils of the Conquered, both in their Lands, their Goods, and their Liberties, which were all seized at the pleasure of the Conqueror.  
A second was, a Belief infused of Divine Designation of the Ottoman Line to reign among them for extent of their Territories, and Propagation of their Faith. This made him esteemed, at least by Adoption, as a Successor of Mahomet, and both a Sovereign Lawgiver in Civil (and with the assistance of his Mufti) a Supreme Judge in all Religious Matters. And this Principle was so far improved among these People, that they held Obedience to be given in all things to the Will of their Ottoman Prince as to the Will of God, by whom they thought him designed; and that they were bound not only to obey his Commands with any hazard of their Lives against Enemies, but even by laying down their own, when ever he commanded, and with the same resignation, that is by others thought due to the Decrees of Destiny, or the Will and Pleasure of Almighty God. This gives such an abandoned Submission to all the frequent and cruel Executions among them by the Emperor's Command, tho' upon the mere Turns of his own Humour, the Suggestions of the Ministers, or the Flatteries and Revenges of those Women he most trusteth, or loveth best.  
A third was, the Division of all Lands in conquered Countries, into Timariot, or Soldiers Shares, besides what was reserved and appropriated to the Emperor; and these Shares being only at pleasure or for Life, leave him the sole Lord of all Lands in his Dominion, which by the common supposition of Power following Land, must by consequence leave him the most absolute of any Sovereign in the World.  
A fourth, the Allowance of no Honours nor Charges, no more than Lands to be hereditary, but all to depend upon the Will of the Princes. This applies every man's Ambition and Avarice to court his present Humour, serve his present Designs, and obey his Commands, of how different Nature soever they are, and how frequently changed.  
A Fifth was, the Suppression, and in a manner, extinction, of all Learning among the Subjects of their whole Empire, at least the natural Turks and Janissaries, in whom the strength of it consists. This Ignorance makes way for the most blind Obedience, which is often shaken by Disputes concerning Religion and Government, Liberty and Dominion, and other Arguments, of that or some such nature.  
A Sixth was, the Institution of that famous Order of the Janissaries, than which a greater strain of true and deep Politic, will hardly be observed in any Constitution. This consisted in the arbitrary choice of such Christian Children, throughout their Dominions, as were esteemed most fit for the Emperor's peculiar Service; and the choice was made, by the shows or promises of the greatest growth or strength of Body, vigour of Constitution, and boldness of Courage. These were taken into the Emperor's Care, and trained up in certain Colleges or Chambers, as they are called, and by Officers for that purpose, who endeavoured to improve all they could the advantages of Nature, by those of Education and of Discipline. They were all diligently instructed in the Mahometan Religion, and in the Veneration of the Ottoman Race. Such of them as proved weak of Body, slothful, or pusilanimous, were turned to labour in Gardens, Buildings, or Drudgeries of the Palace; but all that were fit for Military Service, were at a certain Age entered into the Body of Janissaries, who were the Emperor's Guards.  
By this means the number of Christians was continually lessened throughout the Empire, and weakened by the loss of such, as were like to prove the bravest and strongest of their Races. That of Mussulmans was increased in the same Proportions, and a mighty Body of Chosen Men kept up perpetually in Discipline and Pay, who esteemed themselves not only as Subjects or Slaves, but even Pupils and Domestic Servants of the Grand Signors Person and Family.  
A seventh was, The great Temperance introduced into the general Customs of the Turks, but more particularly of the Janissaries, by the severe Defence and Abstinence of Wine; and by the Provision of one only sort of Food for their Armies, which was Rice. Of this Grain, as every Man is able to carry upon occasion enough for several days, so the quantitg provided for every Expedition is but according to the number, with no distinction for the quality of Men; so that upon a March, or in a Camp, a Colonel has no more allowed him than a private Soldier. Nor are any, but General Officers, encumbered with Train or Baggage, which gives them mighty Advantages in their Germane Wars, among whom every Officer has a Family in proportion to his, Command during the Campania, as well as in his Quarters; and the very Soldiers used to carry their Wives with them into the Field; whereas a Turkish Army consists only of fight Men.  
The last I shall mention, is the speediness as well as severity of their Justice, both Civil and Military, which tho' often, subject thereby to Mistakes, and deplored by the Complaints and Calamities of innocent persons, yet it is maintained upon this Principle fixed among them, That 'tis better two innocent Men should die, than one guilty live. And this indeed agrees with the whole Cast or Frame of their Empire, which seems to have been in all points the fiercest, as that of the Ynca's was the gentlest, that of China the wisest, and that of the Goths the bravest in the World.  
The growth and progress of this Turkish Empire, under the Ottoman Race, was so sudden and so violent, the two or three first Centuries, that it raised fear and wonder throughout the World, but seems at a stand for these last hundred years, having made no Conquest, since that of Hungary, except the remainder of Candia, after a very long War so bravely maintained by the small Venetian State, against so mighty Powers. The reason of this may be drawn, not only from the Periods of Empire, that like natural Bodies, grow for a certain time, and to a certain size, which they are not to exceed, but from some other causes, both within and without, which seem obvious enough.  
The first, a neglect in the observance of some of these Orders, which were essential to the Constitutions of their Government. For after the Conquest of Cyprus, and the example of Selim's Intemperance, in those and other Wines, That Custom and Humour prevailed against their Laws of Abstinence, in that point so severely enjoined by Mahomet, and so long observed among all his Followers. And tho' the Turks and Janissaries endeavoured to avoid the Scandal and Punishment by drinking in private, yet they felt the effects in their Bodies, and in their Humours, whereof the last needs no inflaming among such hot Tempers, and their Bodies are weakened by this Intemperance, joined to their abandoned Luxury in point of Women.  
Besides, the Institution of Janissaries has been much altered, by the Corruption of Officers, who have long suffered the Christians to buy off that Tribute of their Children, and the Turks to purchase the preferment of theirs into that Order for Money; by which means the choice of this Militia is not made from the strongest and most warlike Bodies of Men, but from the Purses of the Parents or Friends.  
These two Distempers have produced another much greater and more fatal than both, which is the mutinous Humour of this Body of Janissaries, who finding their own Strength, began to make what Changes they pleased in the State, till having been long flushed with the Blood of the Bassa's and Viziers, they made bold at last with that of their Princes themselves, and having deposed and strangled Ibrahim, they set up his Son, the present Emperor, than a Child. But the Distemper ended not there, they fell into new Factions, changed and murdered several Viziers, and divided into so powerful Parties, and with so fierce Contentions, that the Bassa of Aleppo, with an Army of an Hundred Thousand Men, set up for himself (tho' under pretence of a counterfeit Son of Morat) and caused such a Convulsion of this mighty State, that the Ottoman Race had ended, if this bold Adventurer had not upon Confidence in the Faith of a Treaty, been surprised and strangled by order of old Cuperly, then newly come to be Grand Visier, and absolute in the Government. This Man entering the Ministry, at fourscore years old, cruel by Nature, and hardened by Age, to allay the Heat of Blood in that distempered Body of the Janissaries, and the other Troops, cut off near Forty Thousand of them in three years' time, by private, sudden, and violent Executions, without Form of Laws or Trials, or hearing any sorts of Pleas or Defences. His Son, succeeding in the place of Grand Visier, found the Empire so dispirited, by his Father's Cruelty, and the Militia remaining so spited and distempered, breathing new Commotions and Revenges, that he diverted the Humour by an easy War upon the Venetians, Transilvanians, or the remainders of Hungary, till by Temper and Conduct he had closed the Wounds which his Father had left bleeding, and restored the Strength of the Ottoman Empire to that Degree, that the succeeding Visier invaded Germany, though against the Faith of Treaties, or of a Truce not expired, and at last besieged Vienna, which is a Story too fresh, and too known to be told here.  
Another Reason has been, the neglect of their Marine Affairs, or of their former Greatness at Sea; so as for many years they hardly pretend to any Successes on that Element, but commonly say, That God has given the Earth to the Mussulmans, and the Sea to the Christians.  
The last I shall observe, is the excessive use of Opium, with which they seek to repair the want of Wine, and to divert their Melancholy Reflections, upon the ill Condition of their Fortunes and Lives, ever uncertain, and depending upon the Will or Caprice of the Grand Signors, or of the Grand Viziers Humour and Commands; but the effect of this Opium is very transitory; and tho' it allays for the present all Melancholy Fumes and Thoughts, yet when the Operation is past, they return again, which makes the use of it so often repeated; and nothing more dispirits and enervates both the Body and the Mind of those that frequently use it.  
The external Reason of the Stand made this last Century, in the Growth of the Turkish Empire, seems to have been, their having before extended it, till they came to such strong Bars as were not to be broken. For they were grown to border upon the Persian Empire to the East, upon the Tartars to the North, upon the Aethiopians to the South, and upon the Germane Empire to the West, and turned their prospect this way, as the easiest and most plausible, being against a Christian State.  
Now this Empire of Germany, consisting of such large Territories, such Numbers and Bodies of Warlike Men, when united in any common Cause or Quarrel, seems as strongly constituted for Defence, as the Turkish is for Invasion or Conquest. For being composed of many Civil and Moderate Governments, under Legal Princes or Free States, the Subjects are all fond of their Liberties and Laws, and abhor the falling under any Foreign or Arbitrary Dominions, and in such a common Cause seem to be invincible. On the contrary, the Turkish Territories being all enslaved, and thereby in a manner desolated, have no Force but that of their standing Armies, and their People in general care not either for the progress of their Victories abroad, nor even for the Defence of their own Countries, since they are sure to lose nothing, but may hope reasonably to gain by any Change of Master, or of Government, which makes that Empire the worse constituted that can be for Defence, upon any great Misfortune to their Armies.  
The Effect of these two different Constitutions had been seen and felt (in all probability) to the wonder of the whole World, in these late Revolutions, if the Divine Decrees had not crossed all Human Appearances. For the Grand Visier might certainly have taken Vienna, before the Confederate Princes could have united for its Relief, if the Opinion of vast Treasures (there assembled for shelter from all the adjacent parts) had not given him a passionate desire to take the Town by Composition rather than by Storm, which must have left all its Wealth a Prey to the Soldiers, and not to the General.  
If the Turks had possessed this Bulwark of Christendom, I do not conceive what could have hindered them from being Masters immediately of Austria, and all its depending Provinces; nor in another year of all Italy, or of the Southern Provinces of Germany, as they should have chosen to carry on their Invasion, or of both, in two or three years' time; and how fatal this might have been to the rest of Christendom, or how it might have enlarged the Turkish Dominions, is easy to conjecture.  
On th' other side, after the Defeat of the Grand Viziers Army, his Death, and that of so many brave Bassa's and other Captains, by the usual Humour and Faction of that bloody Court: After such Slaughters of the Janissaries, in so many Encounters, and such an universal Discouragement of their Troops, that could no where withstand the Germane Arms and Bravery; if upon the taking of Belgrade, the Emperor had been at the Head of the Forces then in his Service, united under one great Commander, and without dependence upon the several Princes by whom they were raised, I do not see what could have hindered them from conquering all before them, in that open Country of Bulgaria and Romania, nor from taking Constantinople itself, upon the course of an easy War, in such a Decline of the Turkish Empire, with so weak and dispirited Troops as those that remained, a Treasure so exhausted, a Court so divided, and such a general Consternation as appeared in that great and multuous City, upon these Occasions.  
But God Almighty had not decreed any so great Revolution, either for the Ruin or Advantage of Christendom, and seems to have left both Empires at a Bay, and not likely to make any great Erterprises on either side, but rather to fall into the Designs of a Peace, which may probably leave Hungary to the Possession as well as Right of the House of Austria, and the Turks in a condition of giving no great Fears or Dangers, in our Age, to the rest of Christendom.  
Although the Mahometan Empires were not raised like others, upon the Foundations, or by the Force of Heroic Virtue, but rather by the Practices of a subtle Man, upon the Simplicity of credulous People; yet the Growth of them has been influenced by several Princes, in whom some Beams at least of that Sun have shined, such as Almanzor, Saladine, Ottoman, and Solyman the Great. And because I have named the most Heroic Persons of that Sect, it will be but Justice to Nobler Nations, to mention at the same time, those who appear to have shined the brightest in their several Ages or Countries, the Lustre of whose Virtues, as well as Greatness, has been sullied with the fewest noted Blemishes or Defaults, and who for deserving well of their own Countries by their Actions, and of Mankind by their Examples, have eternised their Memories in the true Records of Fame, which is ever just to the Dead, how partial soever it may be to the Living, from the forced Applauses of Power, or fulsome Adulations of servile Men.  
Such as these were among the ancient Grecians, Epimanondas, Pericles, and Agesilaus. Of the Old Roman State, the first Scipio, Marcellus, and Paulus Aemilius. Of the Roman Emperors, Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus. Among the Goths, Alaric and Theoderic. Of the Western Emperors, Charlemagne, Frederic Barbarossa, and Charles the Fifth. Of the French Nation Pharamont, Charles Martel, and Henry the Fourth, who began three of their Noblest Races. Of the ●uedes, Gustavus Adolphus. And of our own, Richard the First, the Black Prince, and Harry the Fifth. To these I may add seven Famous Captains, or smaller Princes, whose Exploits and Virtues may justly allow them to be ranked with so great Kings and Emperors. Aetius and Bellisarius, the two last Great Commanders of the Roman Armies, after the Division and Decay of that Mighty State, who set up the last Trophies, and made the bravest Defences against the Numbers and Fury of those Barbarous Nations, that invaded, and after their time tore in pieces that whole Empire. George Castriot, commonly called Scanderbag, Prince of Epire, and Huniades Viceroy of Hungaria, who were two most Victorious Captains, and excellent Men, the true Champions of Christendom whilst they lived, and Terror of the Turks; who with small Forces held at a Bay, for so many years, all the Powers of the Ottoman Empire. Ferdinand Gonzalvo, that Noble Spaniard, worthily Surnamed the Great Captain, who by his sole Prowess and Conduct, Conquered a Crown for his Master, which he might have worn for himself, if his Ambition had been equal to his Courage and Virtues. William Prince of Orange, who restored the Belgic Liberties, and was the Founder of their State, esteemed generally the best and wisest Commander of his Age, and who at the sudden point of his Death, as well as in the course of his Life, gave such Testimonies of his being a true Lover of the People and Country he Governed. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, who by his Wisdom, Courage and Justice, recovered Ten of the Seventeen Provinces, that were in a manner lost to the Crown of Spain; made two famous Expeditions for relief of his Confederates into the Heart of France, and seemed to revive the ancient Roman Virtue and Discipline in the World, and to bring the noble Genius of Italy to appear once more upon the Stage.  
whoever has a mind to trace the Paths of Heroic Virtue, which lead to the Temple of True Honour and Fame, need seek them no further, than in the Stories and Examples of those Illustrious Persons here Assembled. And so I leave this Crown of never-fading Laurel, in full View of such great and noble Spirits, as shall deserve it, in this or in succeeding Ages. Let them win it and wear it.     

ESSAY IV. Of Poetry.  
THE Two common Shrines, to which most Men offer up the Application of their Thoughts and their Lives, are Profit and Pleasure, and by their Devotions to either of these, they are vulgarly distinguished into Two Sects, and called either Busy or Idle Men. Whether these Terms differ in meaning, or only in sound, I know very well may be disputed, and with appearance enough, since the Covetous Man takes perhaps as much Pleasure in his Gains as the Voluptuous does in his Luxury, and would not pursue his Business unless he were pleased with it, upon the last Account of what he most wishes and desires, nor would care for the increase of his Fortunes, unless he proposed thereby, that of his Pleasures too, in one kind or other, so that Pleasure may be said to be his end, whether he will allow to find it in his pursuit or no. Much ado there has been, many Words spent, or (to speak with more respect to the ancient Philosophers) many Disputes have been raised upon this Argument, I think to little purpose, and that all has been rather, an Exercise of Wit than an Enquiry after Truth, and all Controversies that can never end, had better perhaps never begin. The best is to take Words as they are most commonly spoken and meant, like Coin as it most currently passes, without raising scruples upon the weight or the allay, unless the cheat or the defect, be gross and evident. Few things in the World or none, will bear too much refining, a Thread too fine Spungius will easily break, and the Point of a Needle too finely Filled. The usual acceptation, takes Profit and Pleasure, for two different things, and not only calls the Followers or Votaries of them, by several Names of Busy and of Idle Men, but distinguishes the Faculties of the mind, that are Conversant about them, call the Operations of the first, Wisdom, and of the other, Wit, which is a Saxon Word, that is used to express, what the Spaniards and Italians call Ingenio, and the French, Esprit, both from the Latin, but I think Wit more peculiarly signifies that of Poetry, as may occur upon Remarks of the Runick Language. To the first of these are Attributed, the Inventions or Productions of things generally esteemed the most necessary, useful, or profitable to Human Life, either in private Possessions or public Institutions: To the other, those Writings or Discourses, which are the most Pleasing or Entertaining, to all that read or hear them; Yet according to the Opinion of those that link them together: As the Inventions of Sages and Lawgivers themselves, do please as well as profit those who approve and follow them; so those of Poets, Instruct and Profit as well as Please such as are Conversant in them; and the happy mixture of both these, makes the excellency in both those compositions, and has given occasion for esteeming, or at least for calling, Heroic Virtue and Poetry, Divine.  
The Names given to Poets, both in Greek and Latin, express the same Opinion of them in those Nations; The Greek signifying Makers or Creators, such as raise admirable Frames and Fabrics out of nothing, which strike with wonder and with pleasure, the Eyes and Imaginations of those who behold them; The Latin makes the same Word, common to Poets and to Prophets. Now as Creation, is the first Attribute, and highest Operation of Divine Power, so is Prophecy the greatest Emanation of Divine Spirit in the World. As the Names in those Two Learned Languages, so the Causes of Poetry, are by the Writers of them, made to be Divine, and to proceed from a Celestial Fire or Divine Inspiration; and by the vulgar Opinions, recited or related to in many passages of those Authors, the Effects of Poetry were likewise thought Divine and Supernatural, and Power of Charms and Enchantments were ascribed to it.  
Carmina vel Coelo possunt deducere Lunam,  
Carminibus Circe socios mutavit Ulessis,  
Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur Anguis.  
But I can easily admire Poetry, and yet without adoring it, I can allow it to arise from the greatest Excellency of natural Temper, or the greatest Race of Native Genius, without exceeding the reach of what is Human, or giving it any Approaches of Divinity, which is, I doubt debased or dishonoured, by ascribing to it any thing, that is in the compass of our Action, or even Comprehension, unless it be raised by an immediate influence from itself. I cannot allow Poetry to be more Divine in its effects, than in its causes, or any Operation produced by it, to be more than purely natural, or to deserve any other sort of wonder, than those of Music, or of Natural Magic, however any of them have appeared to minds little Versed in the Speculations of Nature, of occult Qualities, and the force of Numbers or of Sounds. Whoever talks of drawing down the Moon from Heaven, by force of Verses or of Charms, either believes not himself, or too easily believes what others told him, or perhaps follows an Opinion, begun by the Practice of some Poet, upon the facility of some People, who knowing the time when an Eclipse would happen, told them, he would by his Charms call down the Moon at such an hour, and was by them thought to have performed it.  
When I read that Charming Description in Virgil's Eight Ec●logue, of all sorts of Charms and Fascinations by Verses, by Images, by Knots, by Numbers, by Fire, by Herbs, employed upon occasion of a violent Passion, from a jealous or disappointed Love: I have recourse to the strong Impression of Fables and of Poetry, to the easy mistakes of Popular Opinions, to the Force of Imagination, to the Secret Virtues of several Herbs, and to the Powers of Sounds; And I am sorry, the Natural History, or Account of Fascination, has not employed the Pen of some Person, of such excellent Wit, and deep Thought and Learning, as Gasaubon, who Writ that curious and useful Treatise of Enthusiasm, and by it discovered the hidden or mistaken Sources of that Delusion, so frequent in all Regions and Religions of the World, and which had so fatally spread over our Country in that Age, in which this Treatise was so seasonably published. 'Tis much to be lamented, That he lived not to complete that Work; in the Second Part he promised, or that his Friends neglected the publishing it, if it were left in Papers, though loose and unfinished. I think a clear Account of Enthusiasm and Fascination, from their natural Causes, would very much deserve from Mankind in general, as well as from the Commonwealth of Learning, might perhaps prevent many public disorders, and save the Lifes of many innocent, deluded or deluding People, who suffer so frequently, upon Account of Witches and Wizards. I have seen many miserable Examples of this kind, in my youth at home, and though the Humour or Fashion, be a good deal worn out of the World, within Thirty or Forty Years past, yet it still remain in several remote Parts of Germany, Sueden, and some other Countries.  
But to return to the Charms of Poetry, if the forsaken Lover, in that Ecclogue of Virgil, had expected only from the Force of her Verses, or her Charms, what is the Burden of the Song, To bring Daphnis home from the Town where he was gone and engaged in a new Amour; if she had pretended only to revive an old fainting Flame, or to damp a new one that was kindling in his Breast, she might, for aught I know, have compassed such Ends, by the Power of such Charms, and without other than very Natural Enchantments. For there is no Question, but true Poetry may have the Force, to raise Passions and to allay them, to change and to extinguish them, to temper Joy and Grief, to raise Love and Fear, nay to turn Fear into Boldness, and Love into Indifference, and into Hatred itself; and I easily believe, That the disheartened Spartans' were new animated, and recovered their lost Courage, by the Songs of Tyrtaeus, that the Cruelty and Revenge of Phalaris, were changed by the Odes of Stesichorus, into the greatest Kindness and Esteem, and that many men were as passionately Enamoured, by the Charms of Sappho's Wit and Poetry, as by those of Beauty, in Flora or Thais; for 'tis not only Beauty gives Love, but Love gives Beauty to the Object that raises it; and if the Possession be strong enough, let it come from what it will, there is always Beauty enough in the Person that gives it. Nor is it any great Wonder, that such Force should be found in Poetry, since in it are assembled all the Powers of Eloquence, of Music, and of Picture, which are all allowed to make so strong Impressions upon Humane Minds. How far Men have been affected with all or any of these, needs little Proof or Testimony; The Examples have been known enough in Greece and in Italy, where some have fallen down right in Love, with the Ravishing Beauties of a lovely Object, drawn by the Skill of an admirable Painter; nay, Painters themselves, have fallen in Love with some of their own Productions, and doted on them, as on a Mistress or a fond Child, which distinguishes among the Italians, the several Pieces that are done by the same Hand, into several Degrees of those made, Con Study, con Diligenza, or con Amore; whereof the last are ever the most excelling. But there needs no more Instances of this kind, than the Stories related, and believed by the best Authors, as known and undisputed; Of the two young Grecians, one whereof ventured his Life, to be locked up all Night in the Temple, and satisfy his Passion with the Embraces and Enjoyment of a Statue of Venus, that was there set up, and designed for another sort of Adoration; The other pined away and died, for being hindered his perpetually gazing, admiring, and embracing a Statue at Athens.  
The Powers of Music, are either felt or known by all Men, and are allowed to work strangely upon the Mind and the Body, the Passions and the Blood, to raise Joy and Grief, to give Pleasure and Pain, to cure Diseases, and the Mortal Sting of the Tarantula, to give Motions to the Feet as well as the Heart, to Compose disturbed Thoughts, to assist and heighten Devotion itself. We need no Recourse to the Fables of Orpheus or Amphion, or the Force of their Music upon Fishes and Beasts; 'tis enough that we find the Charming of Serpents, and the Cure or Allay of an evil Spirit or Possession, attributed to it in Sacred Writ.  
For the Force of Eloquence, that so often raised and appeased the Violence of Popular Commotions, and caused such Convulsions in the Athenian State, no Man need more, to make him Acknowledge it, than to consider Caesar, one of the greatest and wisest of mortal Men, come upon the Tribunal, full of Hatred and Revenge, and with a determined Resolution to Condemn Labienus, yet upon the Force of Cicero's Eloquence, (in an Oration for his Defence) begin to change Countenance, turn pale, shake to that degree, that the Papers he held, fell out of his hand, as if he had been frighted with Words, that never was so with Blows, and at last change all his Anger into Clemency, and acquit the brave Criminal, instead of condemning him.  
Now if the Strength of these three mighty Powers, be united in Poetry, we need not wonder, that such Virtues, and such Honours have been attributed to it, that it has been thought to be inspired, or has been called Divine, and yet I think it will not be disputed, that the Force of Wit, and of Reasoning, the Height of Conceptions and Expressions, may be found in Poetry as well as in Oratory, the Life and Spirit of Representation or Picture, as much as in Painting, and the Force of Sounds as well as in Music; And how far these three natural Powers together may extend, and to what Effects, (even such as may be mistaken for Supernatural or Magical) I leave it to such Men to Consider, whose Thoughts turn to such Speculations as these, or who by their native Temper and Genius, are in some degree disposed to receive the Impressions of them. For my part, I do not wonder, that the famous Doctor Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, should sometimes throw him down upon the Table, and say he had a Devil; nor that the learned Meric Casaubon, should find such Charming Pleasures and Emotions, as he describes, upon the reading some Parts of Lucretius, that so many should cry, and with downright Tears, at some Tragedies of Shakespeare, and so many more should feel such Turns or Curdling of their Blood, upon the reading or hearing some excellent Pieces of Poetry, nor that Octavia fell into a Swoon, at the Recital made by Virgil of those Verses in the Sixth of his Aeneides.  
This is enough to assert the Powers of Poetry, and discover the Ground of those Opinions of old, which derived it from Divine Inspiration, and gave it so great a share, in the supposed Effects of Sorcery or Magic. But as the Old Romances, seem to lessen the Honour of true Prowess and Valour in their Knights, by giving such a part in all their Chief Adventures to Enchantment, so the true excellency and just esteem of Poetry, seems rather debased than exalted, by the Stories or Belief of the Charms performed by it, which among the Northern Nations, grew so strong and so general, that about Five or Six Hundred Years ago, all the Runick Poetry came to be decried, and those ancient Characters, in which they were Written, to be abolished by the Zeal of Bishops, and even by Orders and Decrees of State, which has given a great Maim, or rather an irrecoverable Loss to the Story of those Northern Kingdoms, the Seat of our Ancestors, in all the Western Parts of Europe.  
The more true and natural Source of Poetry may be discovered, by observing to what God, this Inspiration was ascribed by the Ancients, which was Apollo or the Sun, esteemed among them the God of Learning in general, but more particularly of Music and of Poetry. The Mystery of this Fable, means I suppose, that a certain Noble and Vital Heat of Temper, but especially of the Brain, is the true Spring of these Two Arts or Sciences: This was that Celestial Fire, which gave such a pleasing Motion and Agitation to the minds of those Men, that have been so much admired in the World, That raises such infinite images of things, so agreeable and delightful to Mankind: By the influence of this Sun, are produced those Golden and Inexhausted Mines of Invention, which has furnished the World with Treasures so highly esteemed, and so universally known and used, in all the Regions that have yet been discovered. From this arises that Elevation of Genius, which can never be produced by any Art or Study, by Pains or by Industry, which cannot be taught by Precepts or Examples; and therefore is agreed by all, to be the pure and free Gift of Heaven or of Nature, and to be a Fire kindled out of some hidden spark of the very first Conception.  
But tho' Invention be the Mother of Poetry, yet this Child, is like all others, born naked, and must be Nourished with Care, Clothed with Exactness and Elegance, Educated with Industry, Instructed with Art, Improved by Application, Corrected with Severity, and Accomplished with Labour and with Time, before it Arrives at any great Perfection or Growth: 'Tis certain that no Composition, requires so many several Ingredients, or of more different sorts than this, nor that to excel in any qualities, there are necessary so many Gifts of Nature, and so many improvements of Learning and of Art. For there must be an universal Genius, of great Compass as well as great Elevation. There must be sprightly Imagination or Fancy, fertile in a thousand Productions, ranging over infinite Ground, piercing into every Corner, and by the Light of that true Poetical Fire, discovering a thousand little Bodies or Images in the World, and Similitudes among them, unseen to common Eyes, and which could not be discovered, without the Rays of that Sun.  
Besides the heat of Invention and liveliness of Wit, there must be the coldness of good Sense and soundness of Judgement, to distinguish between Things and Conceptions, which at first sight, or upon short glances, seem alike, to choose among infinite Productions of Wit and Fancy, which are worth preserving and cultivating, and which are better stifled in the Birth, or thrown away when they are born, as not worth bringing up. Without the Forces of Wit, all Poetry is flat and languishing; without the succours of Judgement, 'tis wild and extravagant. The true wonder of Poesy is, That such contraries must meet to compose it, a Genius both Penetrating and Solid; in Expression both Delicacy and Force; and the Frame or Fabric of a true Poem, must have something both Sublime and Just, Amazing and Agreeable. There must be a great Agitation of Mind to Invent, a great Calm to Judge and Correct; there must be upon the same Tree, and at the same Time, both Flower and Fruit. To work up this Metal into exquisite Figure, there must be employed the Fire, the Hammer, the Chizel, and the File. There must be a general Knowledge both of Nature and of Arts, and to go the lowest that can be, there are required Genius, Judgement, and Application; for without this last, all the rest will not serve turn, and none ever was a great Poet, that applied himself much to any thing else.  
When I speak of Poetry, I mean not an Ode or an Elegy, a Song, or a satire, nor by a Poet the Composer of any of these, but of a just Poem; And after all I have said, 'tis no wonder, there should be so few have appeared, in any Parts or any Ages of the World, or that such as have, should be so much admired, and have almost Divinity ascribed to them, and to their Works.  
Whatever has been among those, who are mentioned with so much Praise or Admiration by the Ancients, but are lost to us, and unknown any further than their Names, I think no Man has been so bold among those that remain to question the Title of Homer and Virgil, not only to the first Rank, but to the supreme Dominion in this State, and from whom, as the great Lawgivers as well as Princes, all the Laws and Orders of it, are, or may be derived. Homer was without Dispute, the most Universal Genius that has been known in the World, and Virgil the most Accomplished. To the first must be allowed, the most fertile Invention, the richest Vein, the most general Knowledge, and the most lively Expression; To the last, the noblest Ideas, the justest Institution, the wisest Conduct, and the choicest Elocution. To speak in the Painter's Terms, we find in the Works of Homer, the most Spirit, Force, and Life; in those of Virgil, the best Design, the truest Proportions, and the greatest Grace; The Colouring in both seems equal, and indeed, in both is admirable. Homer had more Fire and Rapture, Virgil more Light and Sweetness; or at least the Poetical Fire was more raging in one, but clearer in the other, which makes the first more amazing, and the latter more agreeable. The Oar was richer in one, but in tother more refined, and better allayed, to make up excellent Work. Upon the whole, I think it must be confessed, that Homer was of the two, and perhaps, of all others, the vastest, the sublimest, and the most wonderful Genius; and that he has been generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater Testimony given, than what has been by some observed, that not only the Greatest Masters, have found in his Works, the best and truest Principles of all their Sciences or Arts, but that the noblest Nations, have derived from them, the Original of their several Races, though it be hardly yet agreed, Whether his Story be True, or Fiction. In short, these two immortal Poets, must be allowed to have so much excelled in their kinds, as to have exceeded all Comparison, to have even extinguished Emulation, and in a manner confined true Poetry, not only to their two Languages, but to their very Persons. And I am apt to believe so much of the true Genius of Poetry in general, and of its Elevation in these two particulars, that I know not, whether of all the Numbers of Mankind, that live within the Compass of a Thousand Years; for one Man that is born Capable of making such a Poet as Homer or Virgil, there may not be a Thousand born Capable of making as great Generals of Armies, or Ministers of State, as any the most Renowned in Story.  
I do not here intent to make a further Critic upon Poetry, which were too great a Labour, nor to give Rules for it, which were as great a Presumption: Besides, there has been so much Paper blotted upon these Subjects, in this Curious and Censuring Age, that 'tis all grown tedious or Repetition. The Modern French Wits (or Pretenders) have been very severe in their Censures, and exact in their Rules, I think to very little purpose; For I know not, why they might not have contented themselves, with those given by Aristotle and Horace, and have Translated them rather than Commented upon them; for all they have done has been no more, so as they seem, by their Writings of this kind, rather to have valued themselves, than improved any body else. The Truth is, there is something in the Genius of Poetry, too Libertine to be confined to so many Rules, and whoever goes about to subject it to such Constraints, loses both its Spirit and Grace, which are ever Native, and never learned even of the best Masters. 'Tis as if to make excellent Honey, you should cut off the Wings of your Bees, confine them to their Hive or their Stands, and lay Flowers before them, such as you think the sweetest, and like to yield the finest Extraction; you had as good pull out their Stings, and make arrant Drones of them. They must range through Fields, as well as Gardens, choose such Flowers as they please, and by Proprieties and Scents they only know and distinguish: They must Work up their Cells with Admirable Art, extract their Honey with infinite Labour, and sever it from the Wax, with such Distinction and Choice, as belongs to none but themselves to perform or to judge.  
It would be too much Mortification, to these great Arbitrary Rulers, among the French Writers, or our own, to Observe the Worthy Productions that have been form by their Rules, the Honour they have received in the World, o● the Pleasure they have given Mankind. But to comfort them, I do not know, there was any great Poet in Greece, after the Rules of that Art laid down by Aristotle, nor in Rome, after those by Horace, which yet none of our Moderns pretend to have out done. Perhaps Theocritus and Lucan, may be alleged against this Assertion, but the first offered no further, than at Idils or Eclogues; and the last, though he must be avowed for a true and a happy Genius, and to have made some very high Flights, yet he is so unequal to himself, and his Muse is so young, that his Faults are too noted, to allow his Pretences. Faeliciter audet, is the true Character of Lucan, as of Ovid, Lusit amabiliter. After all, the utmost that can be achieved, or I think pretended, by any Rules in this Art, is but to hinder some men from being very ill Poets, but not to make any Man a very good one. To judge who is so, we need go no further for Instruction, than three Lines of Horace.  
— Ille meum qui Pectus inaniter angit,  
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,  
Ut Magus, & mode me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.  
He is a Poet,  
Who vainly anguistes my Breast,  
Provokes, allays, and with false Terror fills,  
Like a Magician, and now sets me down  
In Thebes, and now in Athens.  
Whoever does not affect and move the same present Passions in you, that he represents in others, and at other times, raise Images about you, as a Conjurer is said to do Spirits, Transport you to the Places and to the Persons he describes, cannot be judged to be a Poet, though his Measures are never so just, his Feet never so smooth, or his Sounds never so sweet.  
But instead of Critic, or Rules concerning Poetry, I shall rather turn my Thoughts to the History of it, and observe the Antiquity, the Uses, the Changes, the Decays, that have attended this great Empire of Wit.  
It is I think generally agreed, to have been the first sort of Writing, that has been used in the World, and in several Nations to have preceded the very Invention or Usage of Letters. This last is certain in America, where the first Spaniards met with many strains of Poetry, and left several of them Translated into their Language, which seem to have flowed from a true Poetic Vein, before any Letters were known in those Regions. The same is probable of the Scythians, the Grecians, and the Germans. Aristotle says, the Agathyrsi had their Laws all in Verse; and Tacitus, that the Germans had no Annals nor Records but what were so; and for the Grecian Oracles delivered in them, we have no certain Account when they began, but rather reason to believe it was before the Introduction of Letters from Phoenicia among them. Pliny tells it, as a thing known, that Pherecides was the first who writ Prose in the Greek Tongue, and that he lived about the time of Cyrus, whereas Homer and Hesiod, lived some Hundred of Years before that Age; and Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, some Hundreds before them: And of the Sibyls, several were before any of those, and in times as well as places, whereof we have no clear Records now remaining. What Solon and Pythagoras Writ, is said to have been in Verse, who were something older than Cyrus; and before them, were Archilochus, Simonides, Tyrtaeus, Sapph, Stesichorus, and several other Poets Famous in their times. The same thing is reported of Chaldoea, Syria and China; and among the ancient Western Goths (our Ancestors) the Runick Poetry, seems to have been as old as their Letters; and their Laws, their Precepts of Wisdom as well as their Records, their Religious Rites as well as their Charms and Incantations, to have been all in Verse.  
Among the Hebrews, and even in Sacred Writ the most ancient, is by some Learned Men esteemed to be the Book of Job, and that it was Written before the time of Moses, and that it was a Translation into Hebrew out of the old Chaldaean or Arabian Language. It may probably be conjectured, that he was not a Jew, from the place of his abode, which appears to have been Seated between the Chaldaeans of one side, and the Saboeans (who were of Arabia) on the other, and by many passages, of that admirable and truly inspired Poem, the Author seems to have lived in some parts near the Mouth of Euphrates or the Persian Gulf, where he contemplated the Wonders of the deep as well as the other Works of Nature, common to those Regions. Nor is it easy to find any Traces of the Mosaical Rites or Institutions, either in the Divine Worship, or the Morals related to, in those Writings: For not only Sacrifices and Praises, were much more ancient in Religious Service, than the Age of Moses; But the Opinion of one Deity, and Adored without any Idol or Representation was Professed and Received among the ancient Persians and Hetruscans and Chaldoeans. So that if Job was an Hebrew, it's probable he may have been of the Race of Heber who lived in Chaldaea, or of Abraham who is supposed to have left that Country for the Profession or Worship of one God, rather than from the Branch of Isaac and Israel, who lived in the Land of Canaan. Now I think it is out of Controversy, that the Book of Job was Written Originally in Verse, and was a Poem upon the Subject of the Justice and Power of God, and in Vindication of His Providence, against the common Arguments of Atheistical Men, who took occasion to dispute it, from the usual Events of Human things, by which so many ill and impious Men seem Happy and Prosperous in the course of their Lives, and so many Pious and Just Men, seem Miserable or Afflicted. The Spanish Translation of the Jews in Ferrara, which pretends to render the Hebrew (as near as could be) word for word; and for which, all Translators of the Bible since, have had great Regard, gives us the Two first Chapters, and the Last from the seventh Verse in Prose, as an Historical Introduction and Conclusion of the Work, and all the rest in Verse, except the Transitions from one Part or Person of this Sacred Dialogue to another.  
But if we take the Books of Moses to be the most ancient in the Hebrew Tongue, yet the Song of Moses may probably have been Written before the rest; as that of Deborah, before the Book of Judges, being Praises sung to God, upon the Victories or Successes of the Israelites, related in both. And I never read the last, without observing in it, as True and Noble Strains of Poetry and Picture, as in any other Language whatsoever, in spite of all Disadvantages from Translations into so different Tongues and common Prose. If an Opinion of some Learned Men both Modern and Ancient could be allowed, that Esdras was the Writer or Compiler of the first Historical Parts of the Old Testament, tho' from the same Divine Inspiration as that of Moses and the other Prophets, than the Psalms of David would be the first Writings we find in Hebrew; and next to them, the Song of Solomon which was Written when he was young, and Ecclesiastes when he was old: So that from all sides, both Sacred and Profane, It appears that Poetry was the first sort of Writing, known and used in the several Nations of the World.  
It may seem strange I confess, upon the first thought, that a sort of Style so regular and so difficult, should have grown in use, before the other so easy and so loose: But if we consider, what the first end of Writing was, it will appear probable from Reason as well as Experience; For the True and General End, was but the help of Memory, in preserving that of Words and of Actions, which would otherwise have been lost, and soon vanish away, with the Transitory Passage of Human Breath and Life. Before the Discourses and Disputes of Philosphers, began to busy or amuse the Grecian Wits, there was nothing Written in Prose, but either Laws, some short Sayings of Wise men, or some Riddles, Parables or Fables, wherein were couched by the Ancients, many Strains of Natural or Moral Wisdom and Knowledge; and besides these, some short Memorials of Persons, Actions, and of Time. Now 'tis obvious enough to conceive, how much easier, all such Writings should be Learned and Remembered, in Verse than in Prose, not only by the Pleasure of Measures and of Sounds, which gives a great Impression to Memory, but by the order of Feet which makes a great Facility of Tracing one Word after another, by knowing what sort of Foot or Quantity, must necessarily have preceded or followed the Words we retain and desire to make up.  
This made Poetry to necessary, before Letters were Invented, and so convenient afterwards; and shows, that the great Honour and general Request, wherein i● has always been, has not proceeded only, from the Pleasure and Delight, but likewise from the Usefulness and Profit of Poetical Writings.  
This leads me naturally to the Subjects of Poetry, which have been generally, Praise, Instruction, Story, Love, Grief, and Reproach. Praise, was the Subject of all the Songs and Psalms mentioned in Holy Writ, of the Hymns of Orpheus, of Homer and many others; Of the Carmina Secularia in Rome, Composed all and Designed for the Honour of their Gods; Of Pindar, Stesichorus, and Tyrtaus, in the Praises of Virtue or Virtuous Men. The Subject of Job, is Instruction concerning the Attributes of God and the Works of Nature. Those of Simonides, Phocilides, Theognis, and several other of the smaller Greek Poets, with what passes for Pythagoras, are Instructions in Morality: The first Book of Hesiod and Virgil's Georgics, in Agriculture, and Lucretius in the deepest natural Philosophy. Story, is the proper Subject of Heroic Poems, as Homer and Virgil in their inimitable Iliads and Aeneids; And Fable, which is a sort of Story, in the Metamorphosis of Ovid. The Lyric Poetry has been chiefly Conversant about Love, tho' turned often upon Praise too; and the Vein of Pastorals and Eclogues has run the same course, as may be observed in Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace, who was I think, the first and last of true Lyric Poets among the Latins: Grief has been always the Subject of Elegy, and Reproach that of satire. The Dramatic Poesy has been Composed of all these, but the chief end seems to have been Instruction, and under the disguise of Fables, or the pleasure of Story; to show the Beauties and the Rewards of Virtue, the Deformitys and Misfortunes, or Punishment of Vice: By Examples of both, to Encourage one, and Deter Men from the other; to Reform ill Customs, Correct ill Manners, and Moderate all violent Passions. These are the general Subjects of both Parts; tho' Comedy give us but the Images of common Life, and Tragedy those of the greater and more extraordinary Passions and Actions among Men. To go further upon this Subject, would be to tread so beaten Paths, that to Travel in them, only raises Dust, and is neither of Pleasure nor of Use.  
For the Changes that have happened in Poetry, I shall observe one Ancient, and the others that are Modern will be too Remarkable, in the Declines or Decays of this great Empire of Wit. The first Change of Poetry was made, by Translating it into Prose, or clothing it in those loose Robes, or common Veils that disguised or covered the true Beauty of its Features, and Exactness of its Shape. This was done first by Aesop in Greek, but the Vein was much more ancient in the Eastern Regions, and much in Vogue, as we may observe, in the many Parables used in the old Testament, as well as in the New. And there is a Book of Fables, of the sort of Aesop's, Translated out of Persian, and pretended to have been so into that Language out of the ancient Indian; But though it seems Genuine of the Eastern Countries, yet I do not take it to be so old, nor to have so much Spirit as the Greek. The next Succession of Poetry in Prose, seems to have been in the Milesian Tales, which were a sort of little Pastoral Romances; and though much in request in old Greece and Rome, yet we have no Examples that I know of them, unless it be the Longi Pastoralia, which gives a Taste of the great Delicacy and Pleasure, that was found so generally in those sort of Tales. The last kind of Poetry in Prose, is that which in latter Ages has overrun the World, under the Name of Romances, which tho' it seems Modern, and a Production of the Gothick Genius, yet the Writing is ancient. The remainders of Petronius Arbiter, seem to be of this kind, and that which Lucian calls his True History; But the most ancient that passes by the Name, is Heliodorus, Famous for the Author's choosing to lose his Bishopric, rather than disown that Child of his Wit. The true Spirit or Vein of ancient Poetry in this kind, seems to shine most in Sir Philip Sidney, whom I esteem both the Greatest Poet and the Noblest Genius of any that have left Writings behind them, and published in ours or any other modern Language; a Person born capable not only of forming the greatest Idoeaes, but of leaving the noblest Examples, if the length of his Life had been equal to the excellence of his Wit and his Virtues.  
With him I leave the Discourse of ancient Poety, and to discover the Decays of this Empire, must turn to that of the modern, which was introduced after the Decays, or rather Extinction of the old, as if true Poetry being dead, a Apparition of it walked about. This mighty Change, arrived by no smaller Occasions, nor more ignoble Revolutions, than those which destroyed the ancient Empire and Government of Rome, and Erected so many New ones upon their Ruins, by the Invasions and Conquests, or the general Inundations of the Goths, Vandals, and other Barbarous or Northern Nations, upon those Parts of Europe, that had been subject to the Romans. After the Conquests made by Caesar upon Gaul, and the nearer Parts of Germany, which were continued and enlarged in the times of Augustus and Tiberius by their Lieutenants or Generals, great Numbers of Germans and Gauls resorted to the Roman Armies and to the City itself, and habituated themselves there, as many Spaniards, Syrians, Grecians had done before upon the Conquest of those Countries. This mixture, soon Corrupted the Purity of the Latin Tongue, so that in Lucan, but more in Seneca, we find a great and harsh Alloy, entered into the Style of the Augustan Age. After Trajan and Adrian had subdued many Germane and Scythian Nations, on both sides of the Danube, the Commerce of those barbarous People grew very frequent with the Romans, and I am apt to think, that the little Verses ascribed to Adrian, were in Imitation of the Runick Poetry. The Scythicas Pati Pruinas of Florus, shows their Race or Climate; and the first Rhyme that ever I read in Latin, with little Allusions of Letters or Syllables, is in that of Adrian at his Death.  
O Animula, vagula, blandula,  
Quoe nunc abibis in loca,  
Palidula, lurida, timidula,  
Nec ut soles dabis joca.  
'Tis probable the old Spirit of Poetry, being lost or frighted away by those long and bloody Wars with such barbarous Enemies, this New Ghost began to appear in its room, even about that Age, or else that Adrian, who affected that piece of Learning as well as others, and was not able to reach the old Vein, turned to a new one, which his Expeditions into those Countries, made more allowable in an Emperor, and his Example recommended to others. In the time of Boetius, who lived under Theodorick in Rome, we find the Latin Poetry smell rank of this Gothick Imitation, and the old Vein quite seared up.  
After that Age, Learning grew every day more and more obscured, by that Cloud of Ignorance, which coming from the North, and increasing with the Numbers and Successes of those barbarous People, at length over-shaddowed all Europe for so long together. The Roman Tongue began itself to fail or be disused, and by its Corruption made way for the Generation of three New Languages, in Spain, Italy and France. The Courts of the Princes and Nobles, who were of the Conquering Nations, for several Ages used their Gothick, or Franc, or Saxon Tongues, which were mingled with those of Germany, where some of the Goths had sojourned long, before they proceeded to their Conquests of the more Southern or Western Parts. Wherever the Roman Colonies had long remained, and their Language had been generally spoken, the common People used that still, but vitiated with the base allay of their Provincial Speech. This in Charlemain's time was called in France, Rustica Romana; and in Spain during the Gothick Reigns there, Romance; but in England, from whence all the Roman Soldiers, and great Numbers of the Britain's most accustomed to their Commerce and Language, had been drained, for the Defence of Gaul against the barbarous Nations that Invaded it; about the time of Valentinian, that Tongue being wholly extinguished, (as well as their own) made way for the entire use of the Saxon Language. With these Changes, the ancient Poetry was wholly lost in all these Countries, and a new Sort grew up by degrees, which was called by a new Name of Rhymes, with an easy Change of the Gothick Word Runes, and not from the Greek, Rhythms, as is vulgarly supposed.  
Runes, was properly the Name of the ancient Gothick Letters or Characters, which were Invented first or Introduced by Odin, in the Colony or Kingdom of the Geteses or Goths, which he Planted in the North-West Parts, and round the Baltic Sea, as has been before related. But because all the Writings, they had among them for many Ages, were in Verse, it came to be the common Name of all sorts of Poetry among the Goths, and the Writers or Composers of them, were called Runers or Rymers. They had likewise another Name for them, or for some sorts of them, which was Vüses or Wife's, and because the Sages of that Nation, expressed the best of their Thoughts, and what Learning and Prudence they had, in these kind of Writings, they that succeeded best and with most Applause were termed Wise Men; the good Sense, or Learning, or useful Knowledge contained in them, was called Wisdom, and the pleasant or facetious Vein among them was called Wit, which was applied to all Spirit or Race of Poetry, where it was found in any Men, and was generally pleasing to those that heard or read them.  
Of these Runes, there were in use among the Goths above a Hundred several sorts, some Composed in longer, some in shorter Lines, some equal and others unequal, with many different Cadencies, Quantities, or Feet, which in the pronouncing, make many different sorts of Original or Natural Tunes. Some were Framed with Allusions of Words, or Consonance of Syllables, or of Letters either in the same Line or in the Distich, or by alternate Succession and Resemblance, which made a sort of Gingle, that pleased the ruder Ears of that People. And because their Language was Composed most of Monosyllables, and of so great Numbers, many must end in the same Sound; another sort of Runes were made, with the Care and Study of ending two Lines, or each other of four Lines, with Words of the same Sound, which being the easiest, requiring less Art, and needing less Spirit (because a certain Chime in the Sounds supplied that want, and pleased common Ears); this in time grew the most general among all the Gothick Colonies in Europe, and made Rhymes or Runes pass for the modern Poetry, in these parts of the World.  
This was not used only in their modern Languages, but during those ignorant Ages, even in that barbarous Latin which remained, and was preserved among the Monks and Priests, to distinguish them, by some show of Learning from the Laity, who might well admire it, in what Degree soever, and Reverence the Professors, when they themselves could neither Write nor Read even in their own Language; I mean not only the vulgar Lay men, but even the Generality of Nobles, Barons, and Princes among them; and this lasted till the ancient Learning and Languages began to be restored in Europe, about Two Hundred Years ago.  
The common Vein of the Gothick Runes was what is Termed Dithyrambic, and was of a raving or rambling sort of Wit or Invention, loose and flowing, with little Art or Confinement to any certain Measures or Rules; yet some of it wanted not the true Spirit of Poetry in some Degree, or that natural Inspiration which has been said to arise from some spark of Poetical Fire, wherewith particular Men are Born. And such as it was, it served the turn, not only to please, but even to Charm the Ignorant and Barbarous Vulgar, where it was in use. This made the Runers among the Goths, as much in request and admired, as any of the ancient and most celebrated Poets were among the Learned Nations; for among the Blind, he that has one Eye is a Prince. They were as well as the others thought inspired, and the Charms of their Runick Conceptions, were generally esteemed Divine or Magical at least.  
The subjects of them were various, but commonly the same with those already observed in the true ancient Poetry. Yet this Vein was chiefly employed, upon the Records of bold and Martial Actions, and the Praises of Valiant Men that had Fought successfully or Died bravely; and these Songs or Ballads were usually sung at Feasts, or in Circles of Young or Idle Persons, and served to inflame the Humour of War, of Slaughter and of Spoils among them. More refined Honour or Love, had little part in the Writings, because it had little in the Lives or Actions of those fierce People and bloody Times. Honour among them consisted in Victory, and Love in Rapes and in Lust.  
But as the true Flame of Poetry was rare among them, and the rest was but Wild Fire that Sparkled or rather Crackled a while, and soon went out with little pleasure or gazing of the Beholder; Those Runers who could not raise Admiration by the Spirit of their Poetry, endeavoured to do it by another, which was that of Enchantments; This came in to supply the Defect of that Sublime and Marvellous, which has been found both in Poetry and Prose among the Learned Ancients. The Gothick Runers to Gain and Establish the Credit and Admiration of their Rhymes, turned the use of them very much to Incantations and Charms, pretending by them, to raise Storms, to Calm the Seas, to cause Terror in their Enemies, to Transport themselves in the Air, to Conjure Spirits, to Cure Diseases, and Staunch Bleeding Wounds, to make Women kind or easy, and Men hard or invulnerable; as one of their most ancient Runers, affirms of himself and his own Achievements, by Force of these Magical Arms. The Men or Women who were thought to perform such Wonders or Enchantments, were from Vüses or Wife's, the Name of those Verses wherein their Charms were conceived, called Wizards or Witches.  
Out of this Quarry, seem to have been raised all those Trophies of Enchantment, that appear in the whole Fabric of the old Spanish Romances, which were the Productions of the Gothick Wit among them during their Reign, and after the Conquests of Spain, by the Saracens, they were applied to the long Wars between them and the Christians. From the same perhaps may be derived, all the visionary Tribe of Fairies, Elves, and Goblins, of Spirits and of Bul beggar's, that serve not only to fright Children into what ever their Nurses please, but sometimes, by lasting Impressions, to disquiet the sleeps and the very Lives of Men and Women, till they grow to Years of Discretion, and that God knows is a period of time, which some People Arrive to but very late, and perhaps others never. At least this belief prevailed so far among the Goths and their Races, that all sorts of Charms, were not only Attributed to their Runes or Verses, but to their very Characters; so that about the Eleventh Century, they were forbidden and abolished in Sueden, as they had been before in Spain, by Civil and Ecclesiastical Commands or Constitutions, and what has been since recovered of that Learning or Language, has been fetched as far as Ysland itself.  
How much of this Kind, and of this Credulity remained even to our own Age, may be observed by any Man that Reflects so far as Thirty or Forty Years; how often Avouched, and how generally Credited with the Stories of Fairies, Spirits, Witchcrafts, and Enchantments; In some Parts of France, and not longer ago, the common People believed certainly, there were Lougaroos, or Men turned into Wolves; and I remember several Irish of the same mind. The Remainders are woven into our very Language, Mara in old Runick was a Goblin that seized upon Men asleep in their Beds, and took from them all Speech and Motion. Old Nicka was a Spirit that came to strangle People who fell into the Water; Bornwell was a fierce Gothick Captain, Son of Odin, whose Name was used by his Soldiers when they would fright or surprise their Enemies; and the Proverb of Rhyming, Rats to Death, came I suppose from the same Root.  
There were not longer since than the time I have mentioned, some Remainders of the Runick Poetry among the Irish. The great Men of their Septs, among the many Offices of their Family, which continued always in the same Races, had not only a Physician, a Hunt's man, a Smith, and such like, but a Poet, and a Tale-teller: The First, Recorded and Sung the Actions of their Ancestors, and Entertained the Company at Feasts; The Later, amuzed them with Tales when they were Melancholy and could not sleep: And a very Gallant Gentleman of the North of Ireland has told me, of his own Experience, That in his Wolf-hunting there, when he used to be abroad in the Mountains three or four Days together, and lay very ill a Nights, so as he could not well sleep, they would bring him one of these Tale-tellers, that when he lay down, would begin a Story of a King, or a Giant, a Dwarf and a Damosel, and such rambling stuff, and continue it all Night long in such an even Tone, that you heard it going on, whenever you awaked; and he believed nothing any Physicians give, could have so good and so innocent effect, to make Men Sleep, in any Pains or Distempers of Body or Mind. I remember in my youth, some Persons of our Country to have said Grace in Rhymes, and others their constant Prayers; and 'tis vulgar enough, that some Deeds or Conveyances of Land have been so, since the Conquest.  
In such poor wretched Weeds as these, was Poetry clothed during those shades of Ignorance that overspread all Europe, for so many Ages after the Sunset of the Roman Learning and Empire together, which were succeeded by so many New Dominions, or Plantations of the Gothick Swarms, and by a new Face of Customs, Habit, Language, and almost of Nature; but upon the dawn of a New Day, and the Resurrection of other Sciences, with the Two Learned Languages among us, This of Poetry began to appear very early, tho' very unlike itself, and in Shapes as well as clothes, in Humour and in Spirit very different from the Antient. It was now all in Rhyme, after the Gothick Fashion, for indeed none of the several Dialects of that Language or Alloy, would bear the Composure of such Feet and Measures, as were in use among the Greeks and Latins, and some that attempted it, soon left it off, despairing of Success. Yet in this New Dress, Poetry was not without some Charms, especially those of Grace and Sweetness, and the Oar begun to shine in the Hands and Works of the first Refiners. Petrarch, Ronsard, Spencer, met with much Applause upon the Subjects of Love, Praise, Grief, Reproach. Ariosto and Tasso, entered boldly upon the Scene of Heroic Poems, but having not Wings for so high Flights, began to Learn of the old Ones, fell upon their Imitations, and chiefly of Virgil, as far as the Force of their Genius, or Disadvantage of New Languages and Customs would allow. The Religion of the Gentiles, had been woven into the Contexture of all the ancient Poetry, with a very agreeable mixture, which made the Moderns affect, to give that of Christianity, a place also in their Poems. But the true Religion, was not found to become Fiction so well, as a false had done, and all their Attempts of this kind, seemed rather to debase Religion, than to heighten Poetry. Spencer endeavoured to Supply this, with Morality, and to make Instruction, instead of Story, the Subject of an Epic Poem. His Execution was Excellent, and his Flights of Fancy very Noble and High, but his Design was Poor, and his Moral lay so bare, that it lost the Effect; 'tis true, the Pill was Gilded, but so thin, that the Colour and the Taste were too easily discovered.  
After these three, I know none of the Moderns that have made any Achievements in Heroic Poetry worth Recording. The Wits of the Age, soon left off such bold Adventures, and turned to other Veins, as if not worthy to sit down at the Feast, they contented themselves with the Scraps, with Songs and Sonnets, with Odes and Elegies, with Satyrs and Panegyrics, and what we call Copies of Verses upon any Subjects or Occasions, wanting either Genius or Application for Nobler or more Laborious Productions, as Painters that cannot Succeed in great Pieces, turn to Miniature.  
But the modern Poets, to Value this small Coin, and make it pass, tho' of so much a base Metal than the old, gave it a New Mixture from Two Veins, which were little known or little esteemed among the Ancients. There were indeed certain Fairies in the old Regions of Poetry, called Epigrams, which seldom reached above the Stature of Two, or Four, or Six Lines, and which being so short, were all turned upon Conceit, or some sharp Hits of Fancy or Wit. The only Ancient of this kind among the Latins, were the Priapeia, which were little Voluntaries or Extemporaries, Written upon the ridiculous Wooden Statues of Priapus, among the Gardens of Rome. In the decays of the Roman Learning and Wit as well as Language; Martial, Ausonius, and others fell into this Vein, and applied it indifferently to all Subjects which was before restrained to one, and dressed it something more cleanly than it was Born. This Vein of Conceit, seemed proper for such Scraps or Splinters, into which Poetry was broken, and was so eagerly followed, as almost to overrun all that was Composed in our several modern Languages; The Italian, the French, the Spanish as well as English, were for a great while full of nothing else but Conceit: It was an Ingredient, that gave Taste to Compositions which had little of themselves; 'twas a Sauce that gave Point to Meat that was Flat, and some Life to Colours that were fading; and in short, those who could not furnish Spirit, supplied it with this Salt, which may preserve Things or Bodies that are Dead; but is for aught I know, of little use to the Living, or necessary to Meats that have much or pleasing Tastes of their own. However it were, this Vein first over-flowed our modern Poetry, and with so little Distinction or Judgement that we would have Conceit as well as Rhyme in every Two Lines, and run through all our long Scribbles as well as the short, and the whole Body of the Poem, whatever it is: This was just as if a Building should be nothing but Ornament, or clothes nothing but Trimming; as if a Face should be covered over with black Patches, or a Gown with Spangles, which is all I shall say of it.  
Another Vein which was entered and helped to Corrupt our modern Poesy, is that of Ridicule, as if nothing pleased but what made one Laugh, which yet come from Two very different Affections of the mind; for as Men have no Disposition to Laugh at things they are most pleased with, so they are very little pleased with many things they Laugh at.  
But this mistake is very general, and such modern Poets, as found no better way of pleasing, though they could not fail of it, by Ridiculing. This was Encouraged by finding Conversation run so much into the same Vein, and the Wits in Vogue to take up with that Part of it, which was formerly left to those that were called Fools, and were used in great Families, only to make the Company Laugh. What Opinion the Romans had of this Character, appears in those Lines of Horace:  
— Absentem qui rodit amicum,  
Qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos  
Qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis  
Fingere qui non visa potest, Commissa tacere  
Qui nequit, Hic Niger est, Hunc tu Roman caveto.  
And 'tis pity the Character of a Wit, in one Age, should be so like that of a Black in another.  
Rabelais seems to have been Father of the Ridicule, a Man of Excellent and Universal Learning as well as Wit, and tho' he had too much Game given him for satire in that Age, by the the Customs of Courts and of Convents, of Processes and of Wars, of Schools and of Camps, of Romances and Legends, Yet he must be Confessed to have kept up his Vein of Ridicule by saying many things so Malicious, so Smutty, and so Profane, that either a Prudent, a Modest, or a Pious Man, could not have afforded, tho' he had never so much of that Coin about him, and it were to be wished, that the Wits who have followed his Vein, had not put too much Value upon a Dress, that better Understandings would not wear (at least in public) and upon a compass they gave themselves, which other Men would not take. The Matchless Writer of Don Quixot is much more to be admired, for having made up so Excellent a Composition of satire or Ridicule, without those Ingredients, and seems to be the best and highest Strain that ever was, or will be reached by that Vein.  
It began first in Verse, with an Italian Poem, called La Secchia Rapita, was pursued by Scarron in French with his Virgil Travesty, and in English by Sir John Mince, Hudibras, and Cotton, and with greater height of Burlesque in the English, than I think in any other Language. But let the Execution be what it will, the Design, the Custom, and Example are very pernicious to Poetry, and indeed, to all Virtue and Good Qualites among Men, which must be disheartened, by finding how unjustly and undistinguished they fall under the lash of Raillery, and this Vein of Ridiculing the Good as well as the ill, the Guilty and the Innocent together. 'Tis a very poor, tho' common Pretence to merit, to make it appear by the Faults of other Men. A mean Wit or Beauty may pass in a Room, where the rest of the Company are allowed to have none, 'tis something to sparkle among Diamonds, but to shine among Pebbles, is neither Credit nor Value worth the pretending.  
Besides, these Two Veins brought in, to supply the Defects of the modern Poetry, much Application has been made to the smoothness of Language or Style, which has at the best, but the Beauty of Colouring in a Picture, & can never make a good one, without Spirit and Strength. The Academy set up by Cardinal Richlieu, to amuse the Wits of that Age and Country, and divert them from raking into his Politics and Ministry, brought this in Vogue, and the French Wits have for this last Age, been in a manner, wholly turned to the Refinement of their Language, and indeed with such Success, that it can hardly be excelled, and runs equally through their Verse and their Prose. The same Vein has been likewise much Cultivated in our modern English Poetry, and by such poor Recruits, have the broken Forces of this Empire been of late made up, with what Success I leave to be judged by such, as consider it in the former Heights, and the present Declines both of Power and of Honour; but this will not discourage, however it may affect, the true Lovers of this Mistress, who must ever think her a Beauty in Rags as well as in Robes.  
Among these many Decays, there is yet one sort of Poetry, that seems to have Succeeded much better with our Moderns, than any of the rest, which is Dramatic, or that of the Stage: In this, the Italian, the Spanish, and the French, have all had their different Merit, and received their just Applauses. Yet I am deceived, if our English, has not in some kind excelled both the Modern and the Ancient, which has been by Force of a Vein Natural perhaps to our Country, and which with us, is called Humour, a Word peculiar to our Language too, and hard to be Expressed in any other; nor is it (that I know of) found in any Foreign Writers, unless it be Moliere, and yet his itself, has too much of the Farce, to pass for the same with ours. Shakespeare was the first that opened this Vein upon our Stage, which has run so freely and so pleasantly ever since, that I have often wondered, to find it appear so little upon any others; being a Subject so proper for them, since Humour is but a Picture of particular Life, as Comedy is of general, and tho' it represents Dispositions and Customs less common, yet they are not less natural than those that are more frequent among Men; for if Humour itself be forced, it loses all the Grace, which has been indeed the Fault of some of our Poets most Celebrated in this kind.  
It may seem a Defect in the ancient Stage, that the Characters introduced were so few, and those so common, as a Covetous Old Man, an Amorous Young, a Witty Wench, a Crafty Slave, a Bragging Soldier: The Spectators met nothing upon the Stage, but what they met in the Streets and at every Turn. All the Variety is drawn only from different and uncommon Events; whereas if the Characters are so too, the Diversity and the Pleasure must needs be the more. But as of most general Customs in a Country, there is usually some Ground, from the Nature of the People or the Climate, so there may be amongst us, for this Vein of our Stage, and a greater variety of Humour in the Picture, because there is a greater variety in the Life. This may proceed, from the Native Plenty of our Soil, the unequalness of our Climate, as well as the Ease of our Government, and the Liberty of Professing Opinions and Factions, which perhaps our Neighbours may have about them, but are forced to Disguise, and thereby they may come in time to be Extinguished. Plenty begets Wantonness and Pride, Wantonness is apt to Invent, and Pride scorns to Imitate; Liberty begets Stomach or Heart, and Stomach will not be Constrained. Thus we come to have more Originals, and more that appear what they are, we have more Humour because every Man follows his own, and takes a Pleasure, perhaps a Pride to show it.  
On the contrary, where the People are generally poor, and forced to hard Labour, their Actions and Lives are all of a Piece; where they serve hard Masters, they must follow his Examples as well as Commands, and are forced upon Imitation in small Matters, as well as Obedience in great: So that some Nations look as if they were cast all by one Mould, or Cut out all by one Pattern, (at least the common People in one, and the Gentlemen in another): They seem all of a sort in their Habits, their Customs, and even their Talk and Conversation, as well as in the Application and Pursuit of their Actions and their Lives.  
Besides all this, there is another sort of Variety amongst us, which arises from our Climate, and the Dispositions it Naturally produces. We are not only more unlike one another, than any Nation I know; but we are more unlike ourselves too, at several times, and owe to our very Air, some ill Qualities as well as many good: We may allow some Distempers Incident to our Climate, since so much Health, Vigour and Length of Life have been generally Ascribed to it; for among the Greek and Roman Authors themselves, we shall find the Britain's observed, to Live the longest, and the Egyptians the shortest, of any Nations that were known in those Ages. Besides, I think none will Dispute the Native Courage of our Men, and Beauty of our Women, which may be elsewhere as great in Particulars, but no where so in General; they may be (what is said of Diseases) as Acute in other Places, but with us, they are Epidemical. For my own Part, who have Conversed much with Men of other Nations, and such as have been both in great Employments and Esteem, I can say very impartially, that I have not observed among any, so much true Genius as among the English; No where more Sharpness of Wit, more Pleasantness of Humour, more Range of Fancy, more Penetration of Thought or Depth of Reflection among the better Sort: No where more Goodness of Nature and of Meaning, nor more Plainness of Sense and of Life than among the common Sort of Country People, nor more blunt Courage and Honesty, than among our Seamen.  
But with all this, our Country must be confessed, to be what a great Foreign Physician called it, The Region of Spleen, which may arise a good deal from the great uncertainty and many sudden Changes of our Wether in all Seasons of the Year: And how much these Affect the Heads and Hearts, especially of the finest Tempers, is hard to be Believed by Men, whose Thoughts are not turned to such Speculations. This makes us unequal in our Humours, inconstant in our Passions, uncertain in our Ends, and even in our Desires. Besides, our different Opinions in Religion and the Factions they have Raised or Animated, for Fifty Years past, have had an ill Effect upon our Manners and Customs, inducing more Avarice, Ambition, Disguise (with the usual Consequences of them) than were before in our Constitution. From all this it may happen that there is no where more true Zeal in the many different Forms of Devotion, and yet no where more Knavery under the Shows and Pretences. There are no where so many Disputers upon Religion, so many Reasoners upon Government, so many Refiners in Politics, so many Curious Inquisitives, so many Pretenders to Business and State-Imployments, greater Porers upon Books, nor Plodders after Wealth. And yet no where more Abandoned Libertines, more Refined Luxurists, Extravagant Debauches, Conceited Gallants, more Dabblers in Poetry as well as Politics, in Philosophy and in Chemistry. I have had several Servants far gone in Divinity, others in Poetry, have known in the Families of some Friends, a Keeper deep in the Rosycrucian Principles, and a Laundress firm in those of Epicurus. What Effect soever such a Composition or Medley among us may have upon our Lives or our Government, it must needs have a good one upon our Stage, and has given admirable Play to our Comical Wits. So that in my Opinion there is no Vein of that sort either Ancient or Modern, which Excels or Equals the Humour of our Plays.  
I cannot but observe, for the Honour of our Country, that the good Qualities amongst us, seem to be Natural, and the ill ones more Accidental, and such as would be easily Changed by the Examples of Princes, and by the Precepts of Laws; such I mean as should be Designed to Form Manners, to Restrain Excesses, to Encourage Industry, to Prevent men's Expenses beyond their Fortunes, to Countenance Virtue, and Raise that True Esteem due to Plain Sense and Common Honesty.  
But to Spin off this Thread which is already Grown too Long: What Honour and Request the ancient Poetry has Lived in, may not only be Observed from the Universal Reception and Use in all Nations from China to Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but from the Esteem of the Best and the Greatest Men as well as the Vulgar. Among the Hebrews, David and Solomon the Wisest Kings, Job and Jeremiah the Holiest Men, were the best Poets of their Nation and Language. Among the Greeks, the Two most Renowned Sages and Law givers were Lycurgus and Solon, whereof the Last is known to have Excelled in Poetry, and the First was so great a Lover of it, That to his Care and Industry we are said (by some Authors) to owe the Collection and Preservation of the loose and scattered Pieces of Homer, in the Order wherein they have since appeared. Alexander is Reported neither to have Traveled nor Slept, without those admirable Poems always in his Company. Phalaris that was Inexorable to all other Enemies, Relented at the Charms of Stesichorus his Muse. Among the Romans, the First and Great Scipio, passed the soft Hours of his Life in the Conversation of Terence, & was thought to have a Part in the Composition of his Comedies. Caesar was an Excellent Poet as well as Orator, and Composed a Poem in his Voyage from Rome to Spain, Relieving the Tedious Difficulties of his March, with the Entertainments of his Muse. Augustus was not only a Patron, but a Friend and Companion of Virgil and Horace, and was himself, both an Admirer of Poetry, and a Pretender too, as far as his Genius would reach, or his busy Scene allow. 'Tis true, since his Age, we have few such Examples of great Princes favouring or affecting Poetry, and as few perhaps of great Poets deserving it. Whether it be, that the fierceness of the Gothick Humours, or Noise of their perpetual Wars frighted it away, or that the unequal mixture of the modern Languages would not bear it. Certain it is, That the great Heights and Excellency both of Poetry and Music, fell with the Roman Learning and Empire, and have never since recovered the Admiration and Applauses that before attended them. Yet such as they are amongst us, they must be confessed to be the Softest and Sweetest, the most General and most Innocent Amusements of common Time and Life. They still find Room in the Courts of Princes, and the Cottages of Shepherds. They serve to Revive and Animate the dead Calm of poor or idle Lives, and to Allay or Divert the violent passions and perturbations of the greatest and the busiest Men. And both these Effects, are of equal Use to Humane Life; for the Mind of Man is like the Sea, which is neither agreeable to the Beholder nor the Voyager, in a Calm or in a Storm, but is so to both, when a little Agitated by gentle Gales; and so the Mind, when moved by soft and easy passions or affections. I know very well that many who pretend to be Wise, by the Forms of being Grave, are apt to despise both Poetry and Music, as Toys and Trifles too light for the Use or Entertainment of serious Men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to these Charms, would I think do well, to keep their own Counsel, for fear of Reproaching their own Temper, and bringing the Goodness of their Natures, if not of their Understandings, into Question; It may be thought at least an ill Sign, if not an ill Constitution, since some of the Fathers went so far, as to esteem the Love of Music a sign of Predestination, as a thing Divine, and Reserved for the Felicities of Heaven itself. While this World lasts, I doubt not, but the Pleasure and Request of these Two Entertainments, will do so too, and happy those that content themselves with these or any other so Easy and so Innocent, and do not trouble the World or other Men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, tho' no body hurts them.  
When all is done, Human Life is at the greatest and the best, but like a froward Child, that must be played with, and Humoured a little, to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the Care is over.  
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
PAge 257 Line 9 for Desposition read Deposition.