Whose inward hidden parts ethereall Ly close upwrapt in that dull sluggish fime.— "Even so the weaker mind, that languid lies Well plum'd; so rais'd upon her spreaden wing, Of overflowing joy, and of pure love doth sing." More, in his dedication of his poems to his father, says that it was the hearing of Spenser's Fairie Queen read to him on winter-nights by his father, that "first turned his ears to poetry." He has imitated his master occasionally with considerable success; but after all, it is too evident that his genius was not essentially a poetical one. He may have perceived the capabilities of his subject, but he wanted the animating touch to waken it into life and beauty. His zeal could not, like the indignation of Juvenal, supply the deficiencies of nature. His diction is copious, not select; his versification rugged, and incorrect in the extreme.' Yet his design was, in this, as in every thing else which he wrote, lofty and good. In 1639 he took his degree of M. A., and subsequently was chosen fellow of his college. He afterwards took the degree of D. D. He was of a remarkably meditative turn of mind, even in his childhood, as appears from various anecdotes recorded by himself and others; and the insatiable thirst of knowledge by which he was actuated, and especially the deep interest he felt on the subject of religion, induced him to devote himself to a life of study in the seclusion of his own college. Attempts were indeed made to decoy him into a bishopric: " his friends got him as far as Whitehall, in order to the kissing his majesty's hand for it; but as soon as he understood the matter, which it was then necessary to acquaint him with, and till then had been concealed from him, he could not by any means, or upon any account, be prevailed upon to stir a step further towards it." He is mentioned by Burnet, in conjunction with Cudworth, Whichcote, and others, as one of thɩ founders of the Cambridge school of divines, known by the name of Latitudinarians, whose aim it was to restore the old connexion between religion and philosophy, and, by a new infusion of learning and active piety, to quicken the decaying energies of the church of England. He was also one of the earliest asserters of the Cartesian system, and a correspondent of Des Cartes himself. Burnet characterises him as 66 an open-hearted and sincere Christian philosopher;" and Hobbes is reported to have said, that "if his own philosophy was not true, he knew none that he should sooner like than More's of Cambridge." 6 His principal prose works are the Mystery of Godliness,' the Mystery of Iniquity,' and his Philosophical Collections.' Addison styles his Enchiridion Ethicum' an admirable system of ethics; but the most popular of his pieces is his Divine Dialogues' on the Attributes and Providence of God. His works were collected by himself in three volumes folio, 1679. He died in 1687. Ralph Cudworth, D. D. BORN A. D. 1617.-DIED A. D. 1688. RALPH CUDWORTH was the son of a pious and learned divine of the church of England, and was born at Aller in Somersetshire, in the year 1617. His father's death left him, at a very early age, without an instructor, and apparently beclouded his prospects in life; but on his mother's second marriage, the place of a parent was amply supplied by his father-in-law, Dr Stoughton, to whom he was indebted for a most careful education. In 1630 he was admitted a pensioner of Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies with extraordinary diligence, and, in 1639, obtained the degree of Master of Arts with great applause. He was soon after chosen a fellow of the college, and became one of the tutors, in which capacity he rose to such eminence as to have had at one time the almost unprecedented number of twentyeight pupils under his care. After remaining in the college for some time, he was presented to the rectory of North Cadbury, in Somersetshire, worth at that time about £300 a year. The leisure which he thus obtained was not spent after the manner of many, in looking carefully after the emoluments of his office, and in diligently scraping together every fraction of tithe, but in the prosecution of those profound researches and reflections which had already begun to occupy his mind, and afterwards produced such an abundant harvest. In 1644 he published a discourse, which was received with great applause, and has obtained the praise of Bochart, Selden, and Warburton, concerning the true nature of the Lord's Supper, and in the same year appeared his "Union of Christ with the Church a Shadow." About this period he took the degree of B. D. A year or two previously, Hobbes's 'De Cive,' the first work in which he broached his peculiar opinions, had been privately circulated in Paris, and from the theses which Cudworth maintained on taking his degree, it appears probable that his attention had been already drawn to the reappearance in modern times of these antiquated dogmas, in the eradication of which his after-life was spent. The theses were, 1. Dantur boni et mali rationes æternæ et indispensabiles; 2. Dantur substantiæ incorporeæ sua natura immortales Shortly after taking his degree, he was appointed master of Clare-hall, Cambridge, in the room of Dr Parke, who was ejected by the parliamentary visitors, and, in 1645, he was unanimously elected Regius professor of Hebrew. To what act of his life he owed the favour of the parliament must remain doubtful, since it does not appear that he sided with either of the two great parties-which then convulsed the empire-more decidedly than to receive from the Roundheads the offices tendered for his acceptance. Few men took less interest in the politics of the day than Cudworth. While events were taking place, the most important which had occurred in English history, and which were destined to exercise no small influence over the fortunes of civil ized Europe, the lonely student, in the recesses of his academic retirement, was quaffing deep draughts from the most hidden fountains of ancient lore, or was borne away on the strong wing of contemplation from the stirring acts of modern times to the faintly recorded creeds and opinions of the world's primitive inhabitants. It is probable, however, that Cudworth obtained the favour of the parliament from his known hatred of persecution, and from his already immense learning: for the Roundheads ever showed themselves desirous of encouraging litera ture in any way not absolutely injurious to their political interests. From wnatever cause his promotion arose, he determined from this time to abandon altogether the stated duties of the ministry, and to devote himself entirely to academical studies and employments. In 1647 he preached a sermon before the house of commons, which he subsequently published, and for which, at the time, he received the thanks of the house. In 1651 he was created a doctor in divinity. About this period he was compelled by want of money to leave Cambridge. His friends, and indeed the university in general, viewed his secession from them with great consternation, and at length succeeded in recalling him, by obtaining for him the mastership of Christ's college, which he held during the whole of his subsequent life. In 1659 he was appointed one of a committee to consult concerning a revision of the English translation of the Bible. The committee met several times at the house of Whitelocke, who has given us a brief account of their proceedings; but the dissolution of the parliament prevented the execution of their design. He appears to have had some intention of publishing a number of Latin discourses in defence of Christianity against Judaism; but want of encouragement, or some other cause, changed his purpose. They are still extant in manuscript, and it may be hoped that some future age, less superficial and less wise in its own conceit, will witness their publication, especially as they drew forth no undistinguished praise from no undistinguished man,-Dr Henry More. At the restoration, Cudworth wrote a congratulatory ode to his new sovereign, but neither his flattery nor his talents obtained for him any respect in those evil days. In that "paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds," the detestable doctrines of Hobbism had taken deep root, and, like rank weeds in an uncultivated soil, flourished luxuriantly. Religion and its inseparable concomitant liberty, were hated with a good and a perfect hatred. It cannot therefore be a matter of surprise, that a man of Cudworth's profound learning and lofty character should have met with all possible opposition from the superficial wits and sensualized sceptics, who were buzzing through the little hour of their contemptible existence in the sun-shine of court-favour. His learning was the appropriate object of their ridicule, and his piety, of their deadliest aversion. Accordingly, we find that his great work, "The true Intellectual System of the Universe," which was published in 1678, was satirized and attacked with the utmost of their puny strength, by the dissolute courtiers. The attempt of the knight of La Mancha to overthrow the windmills, was not more hopeless. It will scarcely be believed, however, that on account of this work, the express object of which was to overthrow atheism, Cudworth was accused of entertaining atheistic opinions. It was a wise saying, that the extremes of error While the bigots of infidelity assailed him on the one hand, the meet. bigots in religion assailed him on the other. Turner, in his discourses on the Messiah, styles him a Socinian or Deist, at the least, if not au Atheist; and Dryden has said, Cudworth has raised such strong objections against the being of a God and providence, that it is thought by many he has not answered them,"-" the common fate," adds Lord Shaftesbury, "of all who dare to appear fair authors." Soon after the publication of his 'Intellectual System,' Cudworth was installed a prebendary of Gloucester. His life from this period presents little of interest. It was spent, as it had been begun, in the acquisition of knowledge. He expired on the 26th of June, 1688, in the 71st year of his age, and was interred in the chapel of Christ college. It is a pleasing circumstance that his daughter, Lady Masham, after watching the declining footsteps of her illustrious father, had the honour of nursing in his dying hours the immortal Locke, who expired in her house. Cudworth is one of those writers who possess a very high reputation among the few who have studied him, and scarcely any reputation whatever among the many. To the large majority of the reading public his name must be barely known. It does not redound much to the credit of English literati, that a man who raised our national character so high in the opinion of the continental philosophers, should have so little honour in his own country. He was one of that lofty, though selectly-remembered school of English philosophers, who, issuing forth from the academic shades of our southern universities, set themselves diligently to oppose both the persecuting bigotry of the high church party, and the fanatical excesses of the Millenarians, and Fifth-monarchy men. " "They," says Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own Times,' " and those who were formed under them, studied to examine farther into the nature of things than had been done formerly. They declared against superstition on the one hand, and enthusiasm on the other. They loved the constitution of the church and the liturgy, and could well live under them, but they did not think it unlawful to live under another form. They wished that things might have been carried with more moderation, and they continued to keep a good correspondence with those who had differed from them in opinion, and they allowed a great freedom both in philosophy and divinity. Hence they were called Latitudinarians." Of this school, Jeremy Taylor, Dr Thomas Burnet, Dr Henry More, and Cudworth, were the heads. All of them were deeply imbued with the spirit of their great master Plato, and indulged in fair dreams of bliss yet in store for the world, when man should attain to that real happiness which flows from the purification and elevation of his moral and intellectual nature by reason and religion. There was never a more attractive sect of philosophers than this. The lofty talent of those who composed it-their habits of deep contemplation-their boundless learning-the elevation of the subjects on which they wrote, and of what they wrote, seemed rather the attributes of a band of ancient sages, than of modern speculators. Sir James Mackintosh,' has likened Cudworth's great work to the production of a later Platonist, and the same simile applies to the writings of all. The Telluris theoria sacra' of Burnet,-the Enchiridion Dissertation Second. Encyl. Brit. New Ed. ་ Ethicum' of More, and the Intellectual System' of Cudworth, are works of the same genus and character of mind. Cudworth's original intention was merely to write a treatise upon liberty and necessity, showing that necessity, upon whatever grounds and principles maintained, will serve the design of atheism, and undermine Christianity and all religion. He found, however, that the Necessarians or Fatalists, were divided into three classes. Of these parties, one maintained that senseless matter necessarily moved, was the only original and principle of the universe;-another, that God, by his immediate influence, determined all actions, so making them necessary; while a third party acknowledging that the Deity permitted other beings than himself to act voluntarily, denied that man possessed any such liberty as to make him capable of praise or dispraise. In order to overthrow these opinions, he set about to prove the three following propositions: 1. That one omnipotent intellectual power presides over the universe. 2. That this power being essentially good and just, there is something of its own nature eternally just and good. 3. That man has so much power over his actions as to be accountable for them. With these three propositions, he proposed to erect a true intellectual system of the universe, which might supersede at once the ancient atheism of Democritus and Epicurus, and the modern of Hobbes3 and Gassendi. The first part only of this gigantic undertaking was completed, nor shall we be so much surprised as grieved at our loss, when we contemplate the indefatigable toil which has accumulated in every page learning almost sufficient to furnish amply the brain of a modern scholar. The first part of his work is however complete in itself, and a more triumphant refutation of atheism could not be desired. To make every thing comprehensible, he gives us in the first book a clear and full account of the atomic philosophy (called by Epicurus, the Physiological Fate) on which the atheistic system of Democritus was founded. The atomic philosophy, rests on the axiom that no real entity does of itself come from nothing or go to nothing. Reflecting on this, the ancients were led to conclude that the forms and qualities of bodies, so long believed to be things actually existent in themselves, were nothing more than different modifications of the small particles of which bodies are composed, and that feelings and ideas, such as those of light, colour, hardness, beauty, &c. were not things existent in matter itself, but were generated by modifications of matter in sentient minds. Cudworth proves undeniably that this famous system was not the invention, perhaps we should say the discovery, of Democritus, and Leucippus, to whom it has frequently been ascribed, but of much earlier philosophers, and not improbably of the Phoenician Moschus or Mochus, whom he conceives to be identical with the Jewish lawgiver, Moses. It is certain that the originators of this doctrine and its early supporters believed, and deduced as a necessary sequence from their system, the existence of incorporeal substance, i. e. of an immaterial and sentient principle-the immortality of this principle-and its presidence over matter; and that the atheism of which it was for so The word intellectual is employed to distinguish his system from the mere corporeal systems; such as those of Tycho Brahe, or Copernicus. Hobbes's system was not directly atheistical, but it unquestionably made atheism necessary. |