MONTAGU-BERKELEY.

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ten the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, a satire on the abuses of human learning (never completed); the History of John Bull, a burlesque on the war of the Spanish Succession; and a Treatise concerning the Scolding of the Ancients. A good-natured vein of pleasantry runs through all the compositions of this author, whose personal character was also remarkable for many excellencies. He died in 1735.

Though none of the compositions of LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1690-1762), were published in her own lifetime, her writings belong to this period. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and accompanying her husband, Mr Edward Wortley Montagu, to Constantinople, where he officiated as ambassador in 1717-18, wrote from that country to her friends in England a series of lively descriptive letters, which are considered to this day as models of epistolary composition. Lady Mary also introduced from Turkey the practice of inoculating children for the smallpox, which has been the means of saving many lives, and obviating much misery. She was a lady of almost masculine vigour of mind, and the intimate friend of all the great writers of the period. Her letters from Turkey, united with those which she wrote at subsequent times, constitute five volumes, and it is understood that many others remain unpublished in the possession of her family.

METAPHYSICIANS.

The metaphysical writings of the period under review were in some instances ingenious, elegant, and even profound; but it cannot be said that they have added much to the stock of useful speculation in that department of study. By far the greatest writer of this kind was DR GEORGE BERKELEY (1684-1753), Bishop of Cloyne, a man of disinterested and most amiable character, and of very great natural and acquired talents. In 1709, he

published a work called The Theory of Vision, in which he was the first to point out, what is now universally allowed, that the connexion between sight and touch is the effect of habit; insomuch that a person born blind, and suddenly made to see, would at first be utterly unable to foretell how the objects of sight would affect the sense of touch, or indeed whether they could be touched or not. The learned Doctor was led, in a subsequent publication, entitled Principles of Human Knowledge, to extend this doctrine to what is called immaterialism; that is to say, he attempted to show that we cannot prove that any thing really exists, but that all objects which we suppose to be tangible, make a mere impression on the mind by the immediate act of the Deity, according to certain laws, from which in the ordinary course of nature there is no deviation. In a work called The Minute Philosopher, published in 1732, he employed his peculiar ideas in defence of the Christian religion; and in a subsequent pamphlet, he endeavoured to refute the scepticism of a great mathematician, by showing that the object, principles, and inferences of what is termed in that science the analysis, are not more distinctly conceived, or more evidently deduced, than religious mysteries or points of faith. The philosophical works of Berkeley are still held in esteem; but their influence on the opinions and actions of men, if they ever had any, has long since ceased.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, third EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (1671-1713), attracted much attention during the reign of Queen Anne, by his numerous publications concerning the operations of the human mind, the most of which were collected into one work, entitled Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, in three volumes, published immediately after his death. The speculations of Shaftesbury contain much acute remark and fine sentiment; but, though favourable to natural religion, they are slightly tinged with scepticism regarding revelation, and, upon the whole, are somewhat fantastic. His style corresponds in some measure to the sense; it is elegant and

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lofty, but bears too many marks of labour to be agreeable. A still less favourable view must be taken of the metaphysical writings of Henry St John VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE (1672-1751), a man of brilliant and versatile powers, but unprincipled, and disposed to write rather for effect than for truth. Bolingbroke was a Secretary of State in the Tory Ministry at the conclusion of the reign of Queen Anne, and, after the accession of George I., in order to avoid a threatened impeachment, fled to France, where he was for a short time in the service of the Pretender. The remainder of his life was for the most part spent in England, but in a state of total exclusion from power; and, under these circumstances, mortified ambition prompted him to publish many political essays in which patriotism was assumed as a mere instrument for annoying the Ministry, and to write a number of philosophical discussions based on equally unsound principles, and highly adverse to religion. Yet though the matter of his writings be of little value, his style was singularly eloquent for the period, and at the same time highly polished.

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.

The intellectual strength of this age, as already mentioned, was exerted in lively comments upon artificial life, whether expressed in prose or verse. It produced few writers of eminence in any of the departments of literature now to be adverted to, and no respectable cultivators of those many inferior but useful branches of literary labour, by which the people at large are apt to be benefited. The only historical writer worthy of being mentioned was LAWRENCE ECHARD (1671-1730), a clergyman of the Church of England. He published in 1699, his Roman History; in 1702, his General Ecclesiastical History; in 1707, and subsequent years, his History of England; which were the first respectable compilations of the kind, and continued for a long time to be in very general use.

DR RICHARD BENTLEY (1661-1742), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Archdeacon of Ely, distinguished himself as a commentator and critic. His editions of several Greek and Roman classics are still esteemed as masterpieces of verbal criticism, though in some instances he is held liable to censure for having taken too great liberties with the text of his author. The Grecian Antiquities of POTTER Archbishop of Canterbury, published in 1697-8, became the standard work on that subject; and BASIL KENNET, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, about the same time produced what has since been the standard work on Roman Antiquities. The earlier portion of the period was adorned by the lives of Tillotson, South, and other theologians, who more properly belonged to the preceding age. Apart from these, the period may be said to have produced few great divines. The most eminent by many degrees was DR SAMUEL CLARKE (1675-1729), rector of St James's, Westminster, a man of extraordinary mental endowments, and singularly virtuous character. He published Paraphrases on the Four Gospels, Sermons on the Attributes of God, a work on The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and An Exposition of the Church Catechism, all of which rank among the best English theological works, though the author's ideas respecting the Trinity are somewhat different from those maintained by the Church. Dr Clarke was also a classical annotator, and his editions of Cæsar and The Iliad are still held as unrivalled. WILLIAM LOWTH (1661-1732), prebend of Winchester, and rector of Buriton, acquired permanent celebrity by his Vindication of the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Scriptures, published in 1692; his Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Scriptures, 1705; and his Commentaries on the Books of the Prophets. He was also an excellent classical scholar, and in that capacity assisted several writers of inferior fame. FRANCIS ATTERBURY (1662-1731), bishop of Rochester, makes a great figure, both in the political and literary history of the time; having been so zealous

a partisan of the exiled house of Stuart, that he was himself banished in 1723; while his intimate friendship with Pope, Swift, and other Tory authors, has caused his name to be much mixed up with theirs. With the ехсерtion, however, of his letters to those gentlemen, which are admirable specimens of elegant familiarity, he produced no work which was calculated for lasting celebrity. BENJAMIN HOADLY, bishop of Bangor, (afterwards of Winchester,) (1676-1761,) was one of the most eminent theological writers of the age, on what is called the low side of the Church-that is to say, the side which makes the nearest approach to the Dissenters. The peculiar opinions by which Bishop Hoadly chiefly attracted notice, were, that the use of the Sacrament as a test for the admission of men to civil offices, was a prostitution of the sacred rite, that Christ was the true and ultimate head of the Christian Church, and that, consequently, all encouragements and discouragements of this world, were not what Christ approved of, tending to make men of one profession, not of one faith-hypocrites, not Christians. A sermon preached by him in 1717, upon these points, was the cause of the celebrated Bangorian Controversy, in which all the chiefs of both parties in the Church were engaged. As a controversialist, Bishop Hoadly enjoys the highest reputation; he was one of the few who ever conducted religious disputes in the mild spirit of a Christian gentleman. In general divinity, he was the author of Discourses on the Terms of Acceptance with God; a Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and a considerable number of sermons. His whole works fill three folio volumes. CHARLES LESLIE (1650-1722), originally a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, but who lost all his preferments at the Revolution for refusing to take the required oaths, distinguished himself as a controversial writer in favour of the views of the nonjurant, or Jacobite party, and by several works in defence of general religion, of which the