neighbours, the expenfes of warfare, multiplied by the progreffive complexity of the art of war, and the increase of wealth, by means of which thofe expenfes were de frayed. The armies of the first part of the feventeenth century were more than doubled by thofe of the fecond: thole of the fecond part more than doubled by the first part of the eighteenth, and thofe of the firft part of the eighteenth century, more than doubled by the armies of the fecond. The utmoft force that was ever on foot in the wars of Louis XIV. was three hundred and fifty thousand men. The French republic made war on their neighbours with a force of eight hundred: the ailles were obliged to make war on a fimilar scale. The line of batthe extended not from one strong poft, in the fame territory to another: but, fometimes, for hundreds of miles along the frontiers of different countries and invading armies, making no fcruple to leave ftrongholds in their rear, boldly matched forward, in different, though immenfe, divifions, to reduce, not one town or fortrefs, but a whole flate, as by one affault. So mighty and irrefiftable is the apparatus now brought before a place befieged; and fo eafy it is with that apparatus to reduce whatever is not bombproof to ruin, that the greatest mafters in the art of war, begin now to give it as their opinion, that no fortrefs fhould be erected, or held in cities or towns in which there are inhabitants. This divorcement between towns and garrifons is among the firft changes in war, that are about to mark the commencement of the nineteenth century. It is greatly to be lamented, that there is no human purfuit, that has .1 called to its fervice the whole accumulated aid of all the arts and fciences, fo much as war. War not only fwallows up the produce of induftry, but avails itfelf of the difcoveries and inventions of philofophy. Buonaparte, particularly, has given many proofs of this pofition; he has availed himself of religious tolerance, and even religious verfa tality, or fcepticism, and sent forth the magic of moral artillery, at the fame time that he adopted with care every phyfical and mechanical improvement, that might contribute to the maintenance of his armies, and the force of his arms. It is at the clofe of the moft enlightened age, that we find the greatest number of regular and difciplined troops in the field. We have feen more than twelve hundred thousand men in arms at one time in Europe only, and on the coafts of Syria and Egypt. At a time when pious philofophers began to hail the near approach of the Millennium, war broke out on a scale vaftly more extended than any before known. Whole nations of men rofe in arms. Whole territories, measured by hundreds of leagues, were held, as it were, in a ftate of fiege. A general and combined attack was made, by contending armies, on the whole of the oppofite lines at once, all was in motion, from the gulph of Genoa to the Texel. The effects of printing, which burft forth fo confpicuoufly in the fixteenth century, in religious war, had been continued, as in filent and fructifying ftreams, for near three hundred years, broke out again in France: when the gentle ftreams of progreffive knowledge dashed, and foamed, in dreadful cataracts, like the falls of Niagara. As religion, in former ages, called every thing ethics, which has certainly not been without very confiderable influence on the minds of men. In the last century, and the beginning of this, divines and moralifts eftablished the foundation of moral obligation in the will of God, directed by his other attributes, in juftice, truth, the relations and congruities of things! in a word, an act of the understanding. From lord Shaftesbury's writings, re-echoing many of the fublime and engaging notions of Plato, there arofe a fchool, which found thing to her bar, and affumed all power, in both church and state, to reafon, in our age, affumed the power of judging every thing not only in the ftate but the church. Many zealous and ingenious divines were rafh enough, and very unneceffarily, to fubmit even the moft myfterious doctrines to the bar of reafon. Christian philofophers or reafoners, fuch as they were, cut and carved the holy Scriptures at a dreadful rate, admitting certain portions to be authentic, but rejecting others as apochryphal, and interpolation.-ed morality in fome principle anaThe confequence was, that multitudes of the vulgar began to liften to fuch men as Thomas Paine, who taught them that this was the age not of faith but of reafon. A fpirit of attack on the establishments or property of the church, appeared, in many countries, from the court to the cottage. In former times, priefis, in exchange for fpiritual comfor, received large tracts of land, and even whole diftricts and territories. The laity began, in the eighteenth century, to refume the donations of their forefathers. The language of the profanum vulgus, to the clergy, was this: "Take ye t'other world: we will take this to ourfelves." These oblervations, on the moft important viciffitudes in opinions and ufages, religious and political, are not foreign to the divifion of mind: the third head, under which are arranged the objects of our attention. Did our bounds admit, we would take a view of the viciffitudes and progrefs of the philofophy of the human mind, and particularly of moral philofophy. We fhall, for the prefent, content ourselves with adverting to a general change, (comprehending many fubdivifions,) a kind of revolution in the fyftem of logous to fenfation or fenfe, or, at leaft, to that faculty or power, by which we perceive beauty, grace, and harmony, in external objects. As this was the foundation, fo was the fuperftruature, benevolence, generofity, kind affection, compaffion, tenderness, and indulgence: in a word, all the amiable, melting, and weeping virtues, were all the vogue. The more mafculine, and ftern virtues of rigorous justice, and the fulfilment of various fevere duties, began to be thought not altogether indifpenfable in an amiable character. Hence arofe fuch lax moralifts as Sterne, and the myriads who condefcend to imitate that unprincipled though humourous buffoon. But, if that fenfational or fentimental philofophy is not to be confidered, in any great degree, as the caufe of that general relaxation of both mind and morals, which characterizes the prefent period, it certainly fuits it mighty well, and is very convenient to perfons of both fexes. The eighteenth century was characterized, particularly towards its clofe, not only by great, but many of thefe fudden changes. Correfpondent to the quick communication of ideas, was the rapid fucceffion fucceffion of events. Revolutions not only in the field of battle, but in Europe were univerfally predict ed, after the great revolution in America, yet they came fooner than they were expected. Towards the clofe of the eighteenth century, the balance of political power was overthrown: the world was fuddenly turned upside down. The authority of religion, in fome countries, was fubverted. In others it was tinged by new fentiments and new political connections. The Greek and Proteftant churches, nay, the Mahometans, were the patrons of the pope, and the catholic religion. The French nation, formerly the first in devotion to the ladies, the church, and the grand monarch, departed from their refined galJantry, and abandoned themfeives to mere fenfuality; they periecuted the church, and they killed the king. Generous fentiment and affection in France, and other affiliated democracies, was loft in felfithnefs, or, according to their new word, egoijm. If their wild and favage common wealth could be realized, it would exhibit a picture of men, walking, like wanton fchool-boys, on their hands and head, inftead of their feet. This delirium, however, is not to be of long continuance. The fentiments of nature muft return. A fenfe of duty is not to be eradicated from the human mind. Nor yet is a fenfe of religion from the breafts of nations. The religious fentiment already re-appears in France. The prefent government wifely fofters it. Yet in an age and nation, whofe only hope was in this world, and whofe chief good neither was, nor could be, on their principles, any other than fenfual gratification, the molt intrepid courage was ditplayed, 3 the more trying fcenes of judicial condemnation to death, and legalized maffacres. Never, in any age or country, did to great a number of men and women difplay, at any one period of their hiftory, fuch undaunted refolution, and such a contempt of death. If fo great a portion of the people. renounced religion and moral fentiment, the fame profligate contempt of both was apparent, and even avowed, in the conduct of the rulers of nations. The wars that had been made from religious fympathies or antipathies, attachments to particular families, and the prefervation of the political balance, were fucceeded by wars for flaring and dividing the poils of the weaker among the ftronger. This partitioning policy was called a fyftem of indemnities: Indemnities not for any lofs fuftained, but to balance the robberies committed by their neighbours. Inftead of checking, as formerly, unprincipled aggreffion, from a wife defire of maintaining the commonwealth of Europe, pretty well fettled by the treaty of Weftphalia, great potentates winked at the rapacity of one another, and then urged the neceffity of following each others example. So that, on the whole, we cannot affirm, that there has been, in our age, any practical progrefs in religion and morality. As to the former, it may be queftioned whether there be any fuch thing as progrefs in religion. Religions, in their movements, are all rather retrograde. The noble and animating enthufiaẩm that connects religious fects at their commencement grows colder and colder, and finks at laft into a dead inditference. In vain do priests and politicians whip and fpur, and eù deavour deavour to drum a nation into a religious tone, after the genuine fpirit of enthufiafm is loft. In England, and other countries, the higher and middling ranks, perceiving, at laft, the connection between a reverence for religion and the prefervation of rights and properties, became very regular attenders at church. But it was only a ceremonious and cold bufinefs. The motive of their attendance was obvious to every one. To men of difcernment this conftrained refpect, for the exteriors of religion, appeared ludicrous, and, to people fincerely p'ous, impious. With reguard to morality, it has already been obferved, that there feems to be a tendency in most of the fyftems of morals, fince Shaftsbury and Huchinfon, to nurfe up the amiable, even at the expenfe of what we fhall on the prefent occafion, for the fake of contra-diftinction, call the refpectable and fevere virtues. What hare that amiable philofophy may have had in foftening and harmonizing the world, cannot be afcertained. In fact, it is not probably very great. Moral appeals to men themfelves, to the conftitution of their nature, and to the grace and beauty, and propriety of virtue, what do they amount to? Little more than this, that men ought to be morally good, if they pleafe. It is the authority and fanction of the Supreme Ruler alone, that can give vital eflicacy to any moral fyftem. It is an ingenious amulement to metaphyficans to analyfe our moral fentiments, and inquire what is the principle on which, independently of all authority, and all puniments or rewards, we conceive ourselves (as we all do, even fometimes in ipite of ourfelves) bound to follow one course of action rather than the contrary. But, as to the practical influence of this on fociety, it is in truth, as we apprehend, but very trifling. Nothing has yet been done, or can be done, for humanizing and foftening the human heart, fo much as the Chriftian religion. The mo rality of that divine difpenfation is the most pure and fublime that can be conceived, and it is recommended and enforced by every confideration that can imprefs the underftanding or captivate the affections. It is divinely benevolent and impreflive beyond the limits of all human rule or art. The morality of the Chriftian religion, however, was the fame in ̧ the laft and fome preceding centuries, when individuals were more harth in their private intercourfes, and the laws more rigorous and fevere in many refpects than at prefent. The Chriftian religion was more firmly believed in, when lord Ruthven, having imprisoned, in one of his cafties, the young king James VI. of Scotland, faid, when the captive boy cried, Better that bairns fhould greet than bearded men. There was more faith in the world, when men, convicted of feditious practices, or other crimes, not only food on the pillory, but loft their ears: when philolophers and ftatefmen, and thofe of even large and patriotic views advifed, in times of dreadful tearcity, that the neceflitous and helpicis thould fell themfelves and children, as bondlinen and bondfwomen, to rich capitalifts. The prefent age, in fefpect of former times, may be called the age of humanity. Whence this happy change? Not from the progreffive effects of moral difquifitions and lectures: not even from the progreflive effects of preaching, trimFletcher, of Saltown. med med up by the artifices of compofition, taught by profeffors of rhetoric; but from the progreffive intercourfes of men with men, minds with minds, of navigation, commerce, arts, and fciences. Solitary, barbarous, and rude nations, have few restraints on their appetites and paffions. Multiplied relations, and attentions to propriety, grace, and decorum, and the opinions of mankind, in a ftate of cultivated and polite fociety, mingle, modify, and reduce, as it were, the corrofive fublimate of the selfish and angry paffions of men, into a gentle fympathy with all around them.The fciences arreft prejudice and paffion, and teach men to think fairly and candidly on the fituations of other men, and other individuals, as well as on themfelves. Still more immediately is the cause of humanity promoted by the arts: in all of which, we principally contemplate and fympathize with human nature, placed in various attitudes and fituations. In poetry, painting, fculp ture, mufic, and architecture, it is ftill human nature, fcen or fancied, that gives the principal charm: human paffions, feelings, emotions, and conveniences. -Dediciffe fideliter artes, Emollit mores nec finit effe feros. HORAT. Of the progrefs and ftate of the arts, in the eighteenth century, we have little to obferve, that can be confidered as characteristical of that period. The epic poem, which depends on machinery and fable, after fome refpectable efforts by Voltaire, Glover, and Wilkie, has, at laft, died a kind of natural death; having pined away under the too powerful rays of the fun of fcience. The only fpecies of poetry that has flourished, for a long time, is the de fcriptive. The mules that now animate poetry, are the sciences: the fciences that can give dignity to all things, by combining them with the general laws of moral and phyfical nature. In painting, gardening, and architecture, there has been a happy retreat from too much drapery, ornament, and various nick-nackery, and an approach to the fimple, lovely, and majestic form of nature. In mufic, there has been much improvement in harmony and contrapunto: but none of the mathematico-mufical compofitions of our mufical doctors, for real effect on the imagination and heart, are to be compared with fome of thofe fimple melodies that have been formed by a mere imitation, or rather, indeed, participation of human sentiment and paffion. We fhall wind up this fketch of the eighteenth century, with an anecdote of fome mad philofophers, which, though ridiculous, may ferve perhaps to illuftrate our prefent fubject more than all that has been now faid. About the year 1790, the progrefs of difcovery, particularly in chymiftry and mineralogy, had become fo great, and the reign of art over nature fo extenfive, that fome of the fame philofophers, who fet up for political reformers, parti cularly thofe connected with a feminary of diffenters at Hackney, believed not only that the period was approaching, when men were to be governed by the purity of their own minds, and the moderation of their own defires, without any external coercion, but when the life of man might be prolonged, ad infinitum, and philofophers, if they chose it, become immortal. CHRONI |