ble that their volumes are not merely read, and then forgotten; but that they will remain as furviving witneffes, for or against them, from century to century. "Be thou the first true merit to befriend; "His praife is loft, who waits till all commend." THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS. N the prefent article I am little more than the translator of the lively and ingenious Vigneul Marville. The Republic of Letters is of an ancient date. It appears by the pillars Jofephus has noticed, on which were engraven the principles of the fciences, that this republic exifted before the Deluge; at least, it cannot be denied, that foon after this great catastrophe the sciences, flourished. Never was a republic greater, better peopled, more free, or more glorious: it is fpread on the face of the earth, and is compofed of perfons of every nation, of every rank, of every age, and of both fexes. They are intimately acquainted with every language, the dead as well as the living. To the cultivation of letters they join that of the arts; and mechanics are alfo permitted to occupy a place. But their religion cannot boaft of uniformity; and their manners, like thofe of every other republic, form a mixture of good and of evil they are fometimes enthufiaftically pious, and fometime infanely impious. : The politics of this ftate confist rather in words, in vague maxims and ingenius reflections, than in actions, or their effects. This people owe all their ftrength to the brilliancy of their eloquence, and the folidity of their arguments. Their trade is perfectly intellectual, and their riches very moderate; they live in one continued ftrife for glory, and for immortality. Their drefs is by no means splendid yet they affect to defpife thofe who labour through the impulfe of avarice or neceflity. They are divided into many fects, and they feem to multiply every day. The ftate is shared between the Fhilofophers, the Phyficians, the Divines, the Lawyers, the Hiftorians, the Mathematicians, the Orators, the Grammarians, and the Poets, who have each their refpective laws. Juftice is administered by the Critics, frequently, with more feverity than juftice. The people groan under the tyranny of thef governors, particularly when they are capricious and vifionary. They refcind, they erafe, or add, at their will and pleasure, much in the manner of the Grand Monarque--Car tel eft notre plaifir; and no author can answer for his fatc, when once he is fairly in their hands. Some of thefe are fo unfortunate, that, through the cruelty of the treatment they receive, they lofe not only their temper, but their fenfe and wits. Shame is the great caftigation of the guilty; and to lose one's reputation, among this people, is to lofe one's life. There exift, however, but too many impudent fwindlers, who prey upon the property of others; and many a vile fpunger, who fnatches the bread from the hands of men of merit. The public are the distributors of glory but, too often, the diftribution is made with blindnefs, or undifcerning precipitation. It is this which caufes loud complaints, and excites fnch murmurs throughout the republic. The predominant vices of this ftate are prefumption, vanity, pride, jealoufy, and calumny. There is also a diftemper peculiar to the inhabitants, which is denominated hunger, and which occafions frequent defolations throughout the country. This republic, too, has the misfortune to be infected with nume rous Plagiarists; a fpecies of banditti who rifle the paffengers. The corrupters of books, and the forgers, are not lefs formidable; nor do there want imposters, who form rhapsodies and bestow pompous titles on unimportant trifles, who levy heavy contributions on the public. There are alfo found an infinite number of illuftrious Idlers and Voluptuaries; who only feeking for thofe volumes that afford amusement, draw all their fubfiftence from the ftate, without contributing any thing either to it's advantage or it's glory. There are alfo Mifanthropes, born with an hatred of men: Pedants, who are the terror of school-boys, and the enimies of urbanity and amiable manners. I will not notice the licentious Geniuses of the republic, who are in an eternal hoftility of fentiments, and a warfare of difputes; nor those fastidious minds, who are too delicate not to be offended every moment; nor those Vifionaries, who load their imagination with crude and falfe fyftems. All these may be fuppofed to exift in a republic fo vaft as that of Letters; where it is permitted to every one to refide, and to live according to his own inclinations N THE SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE. OTHING is fo capable of difordering the intellects as an intenfe application to one of these fix things; the Quadrature of the Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the Philofophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Aftrology. While we are young, we may exercile our imagination on thefe curious topics, merely to convince us of their impoffibility; but it fhews a great defect in judgment to be occupied on them in an advanced age. It is proper, however,' Fontenelle remarks, to apply one's felf to thefe enquires; because we find, as we proceed, many Yet things well worth his toil he gains; With good unfought experiments by the way.' The fame thought is in Donne. Perhaps Cowley did not fufpect, that he was an imitator. What is certain, Fontenelle could not have read either; and perhaps, only ftruck out the thought by his own reflection. Maupertius, in a little volume of Letters written by him, obferves, on the Philofophical Stone, that we cannot prove it is impoffible to be attained, but we can eafily fee the folly of those who employ their time and money in feeking for it. For it's price is too great to counterbalance the little probability of fucceeding in it. Of the Perpetual Motion, he fhews the impoffibility at least in the fenfe in which it is generally received. On the Quadrature of the Circle, hè fays he cannot decide, if this problem is refolvable or not: but he obferves, that it is very ufelefs to fearch for it any more; fince we have arrived by approximation to fuch a point of accuracy, that on a large circle fuch as the orbit which the earth defcribes round the fun, the Geometrician will not mistake by the thickness of a hair! POTES, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTIST, MADE BY ACCIDENT. CCIDENT has frequently occafioned the moft eminent geFather Mallebranche will ferve for an example. Having compleated his ftudies in philofophy, and theology, without any other intention than devoting himself to fome religious order, he little expected to become of fuch celebrity as his works have made him. Loitering, in an idle hour, in the shop of a bookfeller, in turning over a parcel of books, L' Homme de Defcaries fell into his hands. Having dipt into fome parts, he was induced to perufe the whole. It was this circumftance that produced those profound contemplations which gave birth to fo many beautiful compofitions in Phyfics, Metaphyfics, and Morality, which have made him pafs for the Plato of his age. Anules to difplay their powers. Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found, when very young, Spenfer's Fairy Queen; and by a continual ftudy of Poetry, he became fo enchanted of the Mufe, that he grew irrecoverably a Poet. We owe to the deformities of Pope's perfon the inimitable beauties of his elaborate verfe. Dr. Johnfon informs us, that the late great Painter of the present had the first fondness for his art excited by the perufal of Richardfon's Treatife. age, Helvetius furnishes me with the following additional inftances. M. Vaucanfon difplayed an uncommon genius for Mechanics. His tafte was firft determined by this accident; he, when very young, frequently attended his mother to the refidence of her con feffor; and while fhe wept with repentance, he wept with wearinefs! In this state of difagreeable vacation he was ftruck with the uniform His curiofity was motion of the pendulum of the clock in the hall. roufed; he approached the clock cafe, and studied it's mechanism ; He then projected 2 what he could not discover, he gueffed at. fimilar machine; and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first fuccefs, he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which thus could form a clock, in time formed a fluting antomaton. It was a chance of the fame kind which infpired our great Milton to write his Epics. Milton, "fallen on evil days," was happy to be enabled to retire; and it was in the leifure of retreat and difgrace he executed the poem which he had projected in his youth; and which has enabled our nation to boast of a work which is rivalled by none, if we except the Italians. "If Shakespeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his wool trade, and his town; if he had not engaged with a company of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent perform er, he had not turned author; the prudent woolfeller had never been the celebrated poet. "Accident determined the tafte of Moliere for the ftage. His grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The young man lived in diffipation: the father obferving it, asked, "Would to God," in anger, if his fon was to be made an actor. replied the grandfather, "he was as good an actor as Montrofe." The words truck young Moliere; he took a difguft to his tapestry trade; and it is to this circumftance France owes her greatest Comic writer." "Corneille loved; he made verfes for his miftrefs, became a Poet, compofed Melite, and afterwards his other celebrated pieces. The difcreet Corneille had remained a lawyer. "Thus it is, that the devotion of a mother, the death of Cromwell, deer-ftealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the beauty of a woman, have given five illuftrious characters to Europe," "I fhould never have done, (this great man concludes) if I would enumerate all the writers celebrated for their talents, and who owed thofe talents to finilar incidents." It is alfo well known, that we owe the labours of the immortal Newton to a very trivial accident. "When, in his younger days, he was a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under an appletree, one of the fruit fell, and ftruck him a fmart blow on the head. When he observed the fmallness of the apple, he was furprized at the force of the ftroke. This led him to confider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from whence he deduced the principles of gravity, and laid the foundation of his philofophy." Granger obferves on Ignatius Loyola, that he was a Spanish gen tleman, who was dangerously wounded at the fiege of Pampaluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints, which were brought to him in his illness, inftead of a romance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order. This is well known by the appellation of the fociety of Jefus, or the Jefuits. J. J. Rouffeau found his excentric powers firft awakened by the advertisement of the fingular annual fubject which the Academy of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated Declamation against the Arts and Sciences. It was this circumstance which determined his future literary efforts. La Fontaine, at the age of 22, had not taken any profeffion, or devoted himself to any purfuit. Having accidentally heard fome verfes of Malherbe, he felt a fudden impreffion, which gave an eternal direction to his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was fo exquifitely delighted with this Poet, that after paffing the nights in treafuring his verfes in his memory, he would run in the day time to the woods, and there concealing himself, he would recite his verfes to the furrounding Dryads. In Our celebrated Aftronomer, Flamfteed, was an Aftrologer by accident. He was taken from school on account of his illness. the narrative of his life he fays, that Sacrobofco's Book de Sphæra, having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it, that he immedi ately began a courfe of Aftronomic ftudies. Mr. Pennant, in his life, tells us, that his firft propenfity to Natural History, was the pleasure he received from an accidental perufal of Willoughby's work on birds. A THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS. MAN of Letters, who is more intent on the acquifitions of literature than on the plots of politics, or the fpeculations of commerce, will find a deeper folitude in a populous metropolis than if he had retreated to the feclufion of the country. The Student, as he does not flatter the malevolent paflions of men, will not be much incommoded with their prefence. A letter which Defcartes wrote to Balzac-who, incapable as he found his great foul to bend to the fervilities of the courtier, was preparing to retire from court, |