of demanding a portion for his eldest daughter when the marries are plainly of French origin.

Soon after Philip the Fair had conftituted a general state of the commons of his kingdom, Edward did the fame in England, by way of forming a balance against the power of the barons. For it was in this prince's reign that the House of Commons was abfolutely eftablished.

Till the fourteenth century, then, we fee that the government of England resembled that of France. The national churches were perfectly the fame; the fame fubjection to the court of Rome; the fame exactions that were ftill complained of, but ever paid to that avaricious court; the fame quarrels, the fame excommunications; the fame donations to monks; the fame mixture of religious rapine, fuperftition and barbarity.

The government of France and England having then been conducted on the fame principles for fo many ages, how comes it to pass that these two governments are now become as different as thofe of Morocco and Venice?

Is it not because Great Britain being an island, the king has no occafion to keep up a large standing army, which ferves no lefs to awe the fubject than to guard against the enemy?

Is it not because the English are of a more folid turn, more given to reflection, and more fteady in their resolutions than fome other nations?

And was it not for this reafon †, that, ever complaining of the papal yoke, they, at length, totally fhook it off, while a nation of greater levity, at the fame time, laughed at it, and wore it, and danced in their fetters ?

Has not the maritime fituation of their country too, their ex tenfive navigation, given them a feverity of manners?

• And that severity of manners, which has made their island the fcene of fo many tragical events, has not that likewise contributed to infpire them with a generous freedom?

The love of liberty,-is not that become their prevailing cha racteristic? Has not this grown in proportion with the improvement of their wealth and their understanding? The people cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free. And this the Englith have obtained by their firmness.

To be free is to be dependent only on the laws. Of course the English love their laws as parents do their children, because they proceeded from themselves; at leaft they believe they did.

A government fuch as this could not be established haftily. It had refpectable powers to contend with, and confequently required time. The power of the Pope, the most formidable, because it was founded on ignorance and prejudice: the power of the crown, ever

* Mr. Voltaire says, l'Angleterre etant une ifle, one of his ufual inaccuracies.

A better reafon is here given for the Reformation in England, than that lately affigned by the fame Author. See our laft Appendix.

ready

ready to make encroachments, and always on that account to be guarded againft; the power of the Barons, which was an abfolute anarchy; the power of the bishops, which extending as well to civil as to ecclefiaftical matters, contended for the fuperiority both with the Barons and the Kings.

By degrees, the Houfe of Commons became a barrier to thefe torrents, and that houfe does now, in fact, constitute the nation. The King, who is the head, acts only for himself, and for what is called the prerogative. The Peers affemble in parliament only for themselves. The Bishops do no more. But the House of Commons affembles in behalf of the people, because each member is deputed by the people. Now the people are to the King, as eight millions are to a unit; to the Bishops and the Peers as eight millions are to two hundred: and eight millions of free citizens are represented by the lower house.

From this eftablishment, compared to which the republic of Plato is an idle reverie, and which might seem to be the invention of a Locke, a Newton, a Halley, or an Archimedes, have evils arifen fhocking to humanity. The diforder of the vaft machine went near to destroy it in the time of Fairfax and of Cromwell. Fanaticism got into the grand edifice, like a devouring fire, which confumes the most beauteous buildings, that are only made of wood.

regu.

In the time of William the Third, it was rebuilt of stone. Philofophy has deftroyed fanaticifm, that bane of the best regulated ftates; and it is furely probable, that a conftitution which has lated the rights of the king, the nobility, and the people (a conftitution, in which every individual finds his fecurity) will last as long as any human establishment can laft: and it is equally probable that all states which have not the happiness to be founded on fuch principles as thefe, will haften to a revolution.

Since writing the above Article, I have reperufed the nineteenth book of the spirit of laws, wherein the Author exhibits a portrait of England, without naming it. I was ready to commit my own to the flames, but I confidered that though it wanted the wit, the refinement, and the depth that one admires in Montefquieu, it might still be ufeful. It is founded on facts that are indifputable, and fometimes one is inclined to doubt the ideas of ingenuity.'

THE CERTAINTY OF HISTORY. All certainty, that is not founded on mathematical demonftration, amounts to nothing more than the highest degree of probability. There can be no other hiftorical certainty.

The first hiftorian who spoke of the grandeur and population of the Chinese empire was not believed, nor could he make himself to be believed. The Portuguese who visited that vaft empire many ages afterwards, gave fome probability to the account. It is now certain; that is, it has that certainty which arifes from the unanimous difpofition of a thousand eye-witneffes of different nations, whofe teftimony no one difputes.

·

If only two or three hiftorians had recorded that adventure of Charles the Twelfth, who, obftinately determined to ftay in one of the castles of the Sultan his benefactor, in fpite of him; and with

only his domeftic fervants, fought against an army of Janifaries and Tartars, I should fufpend my judgment. But after speaking with many eye-witnesses, and never hearing the matter called in question, I had the greatest reason to believe it. Because, after all, if it was neither a very wife nor a very common action, it was not unnatural, nor, with that hero, out of character.

What is contrary to the ordinary course of nature ought not to be believed, at least not unless it be attefted by men who are apparently under the influence of a divine infpiration, the evidence of which inspiration cannot be doubted. For this reason, under the article Certainty, in the dictionary of the Encyclopedia, there feems to be a paradox. There it is faid, that if all the people in Paris fhould affirm that they had feen a perfon raised from the dead, there would be as much reafon to believe it, as there would be if all Paris fhould affirm that the French had gained the battle of Fontenoy. Now it is certain that the teftimony of all Paris, on a matter which is in itself improbable, could not be equal to the testimony of all Paris in a cafe where no Probability was wanting. Behold here the first principles of found logic. Such a dictionary ought to be confecrated to truth alone.'

THE UNCERTAINTY OF HISTORY. We have divided the æras of time into the hiftorical and the fabulous. But the historical æra itself wants likewife the diftinctions of truth and fable. I fpeak not of thofe fables received and acknowledged as fuch. There is no doubt, for inftance, arifing on the prodigies with which Livy has interlarded his history, but on the facts that are received, doubts may arife.

It must be confidered, that the Roman republic was five hundred years without historians, and that Livy himfelf laments the loss of the annals of the pontifs, and of other monuments that almoft all perished in the burning of Rome. Pleraque interiere. It is generally acknowledged, that in the firft three centuries the art of writing was very uncommon. Rara per eadem Tempora Litera. One may reasonably doubt therefore concerning any relations of facts which are contrary to the common order of nature, and to human contingencies.

Is it probable that Romulus, the grandfon of a Sabine King, could be under a neceffity of carrying off by force the Sabine women for a fupply of wives! Is the ftory of Lucretia at all probable? Can one fo cafily believe, on the faith of Livy, the ftory of Porfenna's pannic flight, or of Scævola's burning his hand?

Is the ftory of Regulus inclofed in a tub ftuck through with nails more credible? Would not his cotemporary, Polybius, have mentioned it, if there had been any truth in it? He does not fay a fyllable about it. One may prefume, therefore, that it was invented a long time afterwards, in order to render the Carthaginians odious.

If you confult the dictionary of Moreri, he affures you, that this ftory of Regulus is recorded by Livy, though that decade in which Livy might have spoken of it, is loft. There is nothing for it but Freinfheim's fupplement. It is pleasant enough, however, to obferve that the Author of the dictionary, while he quotes a German of the

5

feventeenth

feventeenth century, feriously believes that he is quoting a Roman of the Auguftan age. But the uncertainties of history would fill volumes without number.'

ON THE STYLE AND MANNER OF HISTORY. So much has been faid on this fubject, that little remains to be faid now. It is well known that the style and manner of Livy, the dignity, and eloquence of his pen, are perfectly confiftent with the grandeur of the Roman republic; that Tacitus had a better hand for the portrait of a tyrant, Polybius for the difcipline of war, and Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus for the elucidation of antiquities.

But while we form ourselves on the model of these great maßers in general, our talk is heavier than theirs. Modern hiftorians are required to be more circumftantial in their details, to have their facts better established, their dates of greater precifion; authorities are expected for what they affert, and likewife an attention to customs, laws, manners, commerce, finance, agriculture, and population. It is now with hiftory, as with natural philofophy and the mathematics. The materials are immenfely enlarged, and the more eafy it is to make a collection of gazettes, the more difficult it is to write a history.

Daniel thought himself an hiftorian, when he tranfcribed the dates and narrative of a battle which you could make nothing of. He should have defcribed the people, their laws, manners and customs, and the caufes of revolutions in thefe feveral circumftances. Might not the people fay to him, and with very great propriety, It is not the hiftory of Lewis the large, we want: it is our own? You tell us on the authority of an old chronicle, written the Lord knows when, or by what means, that, when Lewis the eighth was in a dechining ftate of health, his phyficians ordered his poor carcafe to be put to bed to a fine young girl, and that the pious, good king refufed this vile, wicked regimen. Ah, Daniel! Had you forgot the Italian proverb? Donna ignuda manda l'Uomo fotto la Terra*. You fhould have been better acquainted with natural and political hiftory. The hiftory of a country, little known, should not be on the fame model with that of your own.

If you write the hiftory of France, it is not neceffary that you fhould defcribe the courfe of the Seine and the Loire; but if you write the conquests of the Portuguese in Afia, the topography of the country is requifite. You must lead your Reader by the hand along the African coast, along the Coafts of Perfia and India. It is expected that you should inftruct him in the manners, laws and customs of thofe countries which are new to the Europeans.

• We have twenty hiftories of the establishment of the Portuguese in the Indies; but not one of them acquaints us with the different governments of thofe countries, their religions, their antiquities, the Bramins, the difciples of St. John, and the Banians. It is true, they have preferved the letters of Xaverius and his fucceffors. They have given us hiftories of India, written at Paris after thofe mifiona"ries, who were unacquainted with the language of the Bramins. We have been told a hundred times that the Indians worship the devil.

* A haked woman will put a man to bed under ground. Rev. App. Vol. xlvii.

• The

The chaplains of the trading companies go off with this prejd dice, and when they find on the coaft of Coromandel fymbolical figures, they fail not to reprefent them as portraits of the devil. They confider themselves as in his dominions, and prepare to fight him on his own ground. They do not recollect that we Europeans worthip a devil there whofe name is mammon, and that we go fix thoufand leagues from our own country to pay our devotions to him, and fill our pockets.

As to thofe who are hired fervants to a bookfeller in St. James's Street, and who are ordered by their mafter to write a hiftory of Japan, or Canada, or the Canary Islands, or, poffibly, the memoirs of fome capuchin, to those I have nothing to say.

But if you, my good hiftoriographer, will tell us no more than that one barbarous prince fucceeded another on the banks of the Uxus, or the Jaxertes, of what utility can your hiftory be to the public?

These rules are well known, but the art of writing history well, will always be very rare. We know that the ftyle fhould be grave, pure, various and pleafing. In fhort, it is with hiftorical writing, as with all other works of genius, there are many rules, but very few real artists.'

ON THE INFLUENCE WHICH THE PASSIONS OF THE MOTHER HAVE ON THE FOETUS. I am now of opinion, that the ftrong paffions of pregnant women have a prodigious effect on the embryo, and I believe I fhall always be of the fame opinion. I have my reafons from what I have feen. Had I no other authority for this opinion than the teftimony of those hiftorians who relate the cafe of Mary Stuart, and her fon james the firft, I fhould fufpend my judgment, because this happened two hundred years ago, and because the impreffion made on James may be imputed to other causes than the imagination of Mary, The royal affaffins, at the head of whom was her husband, entered, fword in hand into the room where he was at fupper with her lover, and killed him before her eyes. This fudden stroke affected her fœtus, and James the firft, with a great deal of courage, had always an involuntary tremor upon him when a fword was drawn out of the fcabbard. But this influence on his nerves might have another cause.

Of the following I was an eye-witnefs. A tramper, with a dancing dog, which he had dreffed in fomething of a red cap, went into the court-yard of a woman who was pregnant. She cried out immediately that the animal fhould be taken away. She told us that her child would bear the marks of it. She wept, and would not be comforted. This is the second time, faid fhe, that the like misfor fortune has happened to me. My first child bears the marks of a fright which I received. It is the weakness of my frame; I am fenfible that this misfortune will be repeated. She had too much reafon for what she said. She was brought to bed of a child which resembled the figure that had frighted her. The cap, in particular, was plainly visible, and the poor infant lived two days.

In the time of Malebranche, no one doubted of the circumstance he relates of a woman, who having feen a malefactor broke on the wheel, was delivered of a child bruised in the fame parts with the

criminal.