This of the order and regularity with which the plastic natures act. controversy was carried on to a much greater length, but Bayle continued throughout to maintain that decided superiority which he possesses in the short abstract we have given. We have spent so much time in giving an account of the Intellectual System, as to have left us little or none for his remaining works; we must not, however, omit to recommend most earnestly, to the attention of the reader, his sermon in 1647 before the house of commons. Those who have heard of his great work only as a collection of the dry bones of forgotten tongues, will be surprised to find in this sermon a complete absence of all erudition,-a plainness, and simplicity, and fervour, and a vein of poetical imagery not unlike the glorious effusions of Jeremy Taylor. In addition to the works before enumerated, there was published, after his death,' A Treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality' from his pen. Its object was to disprove the opinion, that right and wrong were not real, but imaginary and arbitrary. Though probably intended only as an introduction to an ethical treatise, it is very valuable as a complete and masterly refutation of this ancient dogma of Protagoras, which had been revived by Hobbes in modern times with considerable applause. The British museum contains many, and it is said, very valuable manuscripts in Cudworth's writing, which have never yet seen the light. The Intellectual System' was published in one volume, folio, at London, 1678, and in 2 vols. 4to, in 1743, with the majority of his smaller works, and a life by Dr Birch. It was also translated into Latin by Mosheim, and published at Jena, in 2 vols. folio, 1733, and reprinted at Leyden in 1773, 2 vols. 4to.- The Eternal and Immutable Morality' was published by Chandler, bishop of Durham, in 1733, 8vo. His sermons and some of his smaller tracts have been several times reprinted. The best of them—that preached before the house of commons-was printed in 1647, 4to; in 1814, 8vo; and in a neat little pocket volume in 1831, by T. Hodgson, Liverpool. III. LITERARY SERIES. Sir Thomas Bodley. Died A. d. 1612. THIS gentleman, who has endeared his name to posterity, by founding the noble library at Oxford, called after him, 'The Bodleian library,' was the son of an eminent merchant at Exeter, who having early embraced the reformed religion, and being menaced with persecution on that account, fled with his son to Geneva, and remained there during the turbulent reign of Queen Mary. Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth, they returned home with the other protestant exiles; and young Bodley, having made consider able progress at Geneva in divinity and the learned languages, was sent by his father to Magdalen college, Oxford. In 1563, he took his degree of master of arts; in 1563, he obtained a fellowship in Merton college; in 1569, he was elected one of the proctors of the university; and, for a considerable time during a vacancy, he supplied the place of university-orator. His friends now having in view some preferment for him about the court, in 1576, he went abroad to make the tour of Europe, and perfect himself in the modern languages. He continued about four years on the continent, and, upon his return he applied himself to the study of history and politics to qualify himself for public employment. He was very soon called upon to exert his talents in stations of great dignity and importance. From gentleman-usher to Queen Elizabeth, he rose to be her majesty's ambassador to the courts of France and Denmark; and her representative in the council of state of the United Provinces, in 1588. He managed the queen's affairs so much to the satisfaction of the ministry at home, that he was continued in this high office till 1597, when all the public negotiations with the states being successfully terminated, he was recalled. But, instead of meeting with that reward for his eminent services which he had a right to expect, he found his own interest declining with that of his patron, the earl of Essex, and, in a fit of disgust, retired from court, and all public business; and, though afterwards much solicited, he never would accept of any new office under government, but King James, on his accession, conferred on him the honour of knighthood. To this retirement from the bustle of public life, the university of Oxford most probably stands indebted for the Bodleian library, justly esteemed one of the noblest in the world. The first step Sir Thomas Bodley took in this affair, was to write a letter to Dr Ravis, the vicechancellor of the university, offering to rebuild the decayed fabric of the public library, to improve and augment the scanty collection of books contained in it, and to vest an annual income in the hands of the heads of the university, for the purchasing of books, and for the salaries of such officers as they should think it necessary to appoint. A suitable answer being returned, and this generous offer gratefully accepted, Sir Thomas immediately ordered the old building to be pulled down, and a new one erected at his own expense, which was completed in about two years. He then added to the old a new collection of the most valuable books then extant, which he ordered to be purchased in foreign countries; and having thus set the example, the nobility, the bishops, and several private gentlemen, made such considerable benefactions in books, that the room was not large enough to contain them. Upon which Sir Thomas offered to make considerable additions to the building. On the 19th of July 1610, he laid the first stone of a new foundation, being accompanied by the vice-chancellor, doctors, masters of arts, &c. Sir Thomas Bodley did not live to see this building completed; but he had the satisfaction to know that it was intended as soon as that was finished to enlarge the plan of the whole edifice, and in the end to form a regular quadrangle; and as he knew his own fortune was inadequate to this great work, he made use of his interest with several persons of rank and fortune, and engaged them to make large presents to the university to forward this undertaking, to which PERIOD.] FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 401 he bequeathed his whole estate. He likewise drew up some excellent statutes for the regulation of the library, which seems to have been the last act of his life. He died on the 28th of January, 1612, and was buried in the chapel of Merton college, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory; his statue was likewise put in the library, at the expense of the earl of Dorset, when chancellor of the university. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. FLOR. A. D. 1612. THESE bright ornaments of our dramatic literature were so indissolubly united during life, in a fellowship dear to every lover of the muses, and their immortal strains have so intertwined their names in the remembrance of posterity, that it would be a violation of good taste and good feeling were we to separate them. Very little is known concerning them, and very few memorials of them have been handed down, save those matchless dramas which have made their literary partnership more celebrated, and far more valuable to mankind, than the martial friendships of the Theseus and Pirithous, and Castor and Pollux, of antiquity. Francis Beaumont was descended from an ancient and respectable family of that name in Leicestershire. His grandfather, John Beaumont, had been master of the rolls, and his father, Francis, one of the judges of the court of common pleas. He was born in the year 1585, and having completed his education at Cambridge, was entered a student of the Inner Temple. It does not appear that he made any great progress in his legal studies, nor indeed is it possible that he could have done so, since it was here that he met with Fletcher, and the two embryo lawyers, being both possessed of a competency already, flung aside all anticipations of wigs and silk gowns for the more agreeable pastime of enlivening the town with their exquisite dramas, and of engaging at the Mermaid in those celebrated wit combats' which called forth, in addition to the wit and fancy of our two authors, all the learning of Selden, the quaint conceits of Donne, the rich humour of Ben Jonson, and the genius of Shakspeare. In a poetical epistle to Ben Jonson, Beaumont writes, "What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest He died on the 15th of March, 1615, in the 30th year of his age, leaving behind him one daughter, who, it is said, was living in Leices tershire in the year 1700. John Fletcher was the son of Dr Fletcher, bishop of Bristol, and afterwards bishop of London, and was born in the year 1577. After studying at Cambridge, where he made great proficiency, and was 3 E II. cated Will Shakspeare their undoubted superior. There is, however, a sterling wit in their dialogues-a vigorous and lusty manhood in their portraits—a stirring warmth and action in their scenes and a strength and beauty in the buoyant pinions on which they soar aloft into the realms of fancy, which will bear them up in spite of these defects, and will insure them through all ages two of the most sacred niches in the temple of English poetry. The following brief passage is addressed by one of Philaster's friends to the king, who is threatening to have Philaster beheaded. It is not nearly so beautiful as many which might have been selected, but its length is convenient : "King, you may be deceived yet: Like a wild overflow that swoops before him A golden stack, and with it shakes down bridges, And, so made mightier, takes whole villages Upon his back, and in that heat of pride Charges strong towns, towers, castles, palaces, And lays them desolate; so shall thy head, (to Philaster? Philaster, Act V. Scene 1. There are two plays included in the common editions of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, from their great merit, demand a separate notice; we mean The Faithful Shepherdess and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The former, which was the production of Fletcher alone, is a pastoral drama, of which it may safely be said, that we have nothing in the language at once so purely pastoral and so exquisitely poetical. The Comus was undoubtedly copied from it, and although Milton may have surpassed the original in stately and majestic poetry, it is beyond a question, that Fletcher, besides the merit of priority, is more redoleut of life and nature. Were it not defiled by indelicacy, The Faithful Shepherdess would be faultless. With a taste not less execrable than that which Dryden exhibited when he profaned the fairy-land of Miranda with his gross obscenities, Fletcher has polluted the primeval simplicity and virgin innocence of the Eden he had created, by the disgusting debaucheries of the sullen Shepherd and the wanton Cloe. With this exception, nothing can be more faultless, or more abundant in beauty. The other drama which we mentioned, The Two Noble Kinsmen, was formerly said to be the joint production of Fletcher and Shakspeare, but the prevalent opinion in modern times seems to be that Shakspeare had no connection with it. We see not, for our own parts, on what this disbelief is grounded. It is certain that Fletcher had some ally, who could not be Beaumont, for the play was written after Beaumont's death; and since the title page of the first edition of the play calls Shakspeare and Fletcher the authors-since the truth of this statement was never questioned until modern times, although many of Shakspeare's friends were living when the play was published since all the old critics mention Shakspeare as one of the writers of it—and more than |