ter another taken by One who knew him well; a good judge of merit, and seldom known to err, at least in heightening a favourable likeness. As a philofopher, it is fcarce hyperbolical to fay of him, in Mr. Addifon's words, that he had the found, diftinct, comprehensive knowledge of Ariftotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embelishments of Cicero. To this commendation of his talents, the learned throughout Europe have given their common fanction, and own him for the father of the only valuable philosophy, that of fact and obfervation.

It remains then to confider him, more particularly than we have hitherto done in this most known and confpicuous part of his character; where his merit is unquestionably great and entirely his own. For, to the writings of the antients, he was not, he could not be obliged. They had either mistaken the right road to natural knowlege: or if any of them ftruck into it by chance, finding the way difficult, obfcure, and tedious, they soon abandoned it for ever. He owed to himself alone, to a certain intellectual fagacity, that beam of true discernment, which fhewed him at once, and as it were by intuition, what the most painful enquirers, for more than twenty ages backward, had fearched after in vain. And here let ine observe towards him the fame impartiality I have hitherto aimed at: and, in order to know what he really did as a philofopher, place before the reader a fhort view of the state of learning in Europe, from the dark period of Gothi cism down to the fixteenth Century. But let me at the fame time acknowledge, that this account will be only a rude and imperfect sketch; confifting of a few detached particulars, without much order or method.

Altho' the great era of ignorance has been fixed, justly enough, to those times when the northern Na

tions, like a mighty inundation, overspread the face of Europe; yet it is no less certain, that barbarism, and corruption were entered into arts and fciences ere the favages had made any impreffion on the Roman Empire. Under them indeed, that darkness which had been long growing on the world, and gradually extinguishing every light of knowledge, foon became total, and threatened to be perpetual.

In the eighth century, we find that the highest ambition of the Clergy was to vie with one another in chanting the public service, which yet they hardly understood. This important emulation run so high between the Latin and French priesthood, that Charle magne, who was then at Rome, found it necessary to interpofe, and decide the Controversy in person. The Monk, who relates this affair with a most circumftantial exactness, adds, that the Emperor entreated Pope Adrian to procure him certain perfons, who might teach his fubjects the first principles of grammar and arithmetic; arts, that were then utterly unknown in his dominions. This warlike Monarch, tho' his own education had been fo far neglected, that he never had learned to write, discovered by his natural good sense, the value of knowledge, and fet himself to be its pronoter, and patron.

He even allowed a public school to be opened in the imperial palace, under the direction of our famous countryman Alcuin; on whom he chiefly relied for introducing into France fome tincture of that philosophy, which was still remaining in Britain. But how flow and ineffectual the progress of any learning must have been, we may guess from an edict of the Council of Challons, in the next century; which earnestly exhorts all monafteries to be careful in having their manuals of devotion correctly tranfcribed: left, while they

piously

piously mean to ask of God one thing, some inaccurate manuscript may betray them into praying the quite contrary.

As to Britain, if learning had ftill fome footing there, in the eighth century, it was so totally exterminated from thence in the ninth; that, throughout the whole kingdom of the Weft-Saxons, no man could be found who was scholar enough to inftruct our King Alfred, then a child, even in the first elements of reading: fo that he was in his twelfth year before he could name the letters of the alphabet. When that renowned Prince afcended the throne, he made it his study, to draw his people out of the floth and stupidity in which they lay: and became, as much by his own example, as by the encouragement he gave to the learned men, the great restorer of arts in his dominions. And here we

are called upon, to observe, that as France had been formerly obliged to England in the person of Alcuin, who planted the sciences there under Charlemagne : our Iland now received the fame friendly affistance from thence by Grimbald, whom King Alfred had invited hither, and made Chancellor of Oxford. Such Events as these are too confiderable, in the literary history of the ninth age, to be passed over unobserved. The rife of a noted grammarian, the voyage of an applauded doctor, are recorded, by the chroniclers of that century, with the same reverence, that an ancient writer would mention the appearance of a Lycurgus, or a Timoleon; of a lawgiver, who new-models a state, or a hero, who rescues a whole people from flavery.

But these fair appearances were of short duration. A night of thicker darkness quickly overspread the intellectual world: and in the moral followed a revolution still more deplorable. To common sense and piety fucceeded dreams and fables, visionary legends and

ridiculous penances. The Clergy, now utter ftrangers to all good learning, instead of guiding a rude and vicious Laity by the precepts of the gospel, which they no longer read; amufed them with forged miracles, or overawed them by the ghostly terrors of demons, Spectres and chimeras. This was more easy, and more profitable too, than the painful example of a virtuous life. The profound depravity that was spread thro' all conditions of men, ecclefiaftic and fecular, appears in nothing more plain than in the reasons affigned for calling several councils about this time. In one, new canons were to be made, forbidding adultery, incest, and the practice of pagan fuperftitions; as if these things had not till then been accounted criminal. In an other, it was found necessary to declare, that a number of Angels worshiped univerfally under certains nawere altogether unknown: and that the church could not warrant the particular invocation of more than three. Another, which the Emprefs Irene had fummoned for the reformation of difcipline, ordained, that no Prelate fhould thenceforth convert his episcopal palace into a common inn; nor, in consideration only of any sum of money given him by one man, curfe and excommunicate another. A fourth, and fifth, censure the indecency of avowed concubinage: and enjoin that Fryars and Nuns could no longer converse or live promiscuously in the same convent.

mes,

The See of Rome, which fhould have been a patern to the reft, was of all chriftian churches the inoft licentious; and the pontifical chair often filled with men, who, instead of adorning their facred character, made human nature itself detestable: a truth by many catolic writers acknowledged and lamented. Several popes were by their fucceffors excommunicated, their acts abrogated, and the facraments adminiftred by them,

'pro

pronounced invalid.

No less than fix were 'expelled by others, who ufurped their Seat; two were affaffinated: and the infamous Theodora, infamous even in that age, by her credit in the holy city, obtained the triple crown for the most avowed of her gallants, who affumed the name of John the Tenth. Another of the same name was called to govern the Christian world at the age of twenty one; a baftard, fon of Pope Sergius who died eighteen years before. If fuch were the men who arrogated to themselves titles, and attributes pe culiar to the Deity, can we wonder at the greatest enormities among Lay-men? Their stupidity kept pace with the diffolution of their manners, which was extreme: they still preserved, for the very clergy we have been speaking of, a reverence they no longer had for their God. The most abandoned among them, miscreants, familiar with crimes, that humanity startles at, would yet, at the hazard of their lives, defend the immunities of a church, a confecrated utenfil, or a donation made to a convent. In fuch times as those, it were in vain to look for useful learning and philosophy. Not only the light of science, but of reason, seems to have been well-nigh extinguished.

It was not till late, after the fack of Conftantinople by the Turks, that the writings of Ariftotle began to be universally known and studied. They were then, by certain fugitive Greeks, who had escaped the fury of the Ottoman Arms, brought away, and disperfed thro' the Western parts of Europe. Some particular treatises of his, it is true, had long been made public: but chiefly in translations from the Arabic, done by men, who, far from rendering faithfully the Author's sense, hardly understood his language. These howe ver gave birth to the Scholaftic Philofophy; that mot

ly